Uber to buy alcohol delivery service Drizly for $1.1bn

Uber Technologies has agreed to buy alcohol delivery service Drizly for around $1.1bn in shares and cash.

Drizly works with thousands of local merchants to provide consumers with a selection of beer, wine, and spirits. Once the deal completes, the business will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Uber and Drizly’s marketplace will eventually be integrated with the Uber Eats app, while maintaining a separate app.

Uber’s chief executive officer, Dara Khosrowshahi, said: "Wherever you want to go and whatever you need to get, our goal at Uber is to make people’s lives a little bit easier. That’s why we’ve been branching into new categories like groceries, prescriptions and, now, alcohol. Cory and his amazing team have built Drizly into an incredible success story, profitably growing gross bookings more than 300 percent year-over-year.

"By bringing Drizly into the Uber family, we can accelerate that trajectory by exposing Drizly to the Uber audience and expanding its geographic presence into our global footprint in the years ahead."