DoorDash Buys Food Delivery App Caviar from Square in $410 Million

DoorDash, the food delivery service that brought McDonald’s Chipotle and Wendy’s to your doorsteps has entered into an agreement with payment platform Square acquiring its food delivery app Caviar. 

The payment company Square announced during its second-quarter earnings that it is selling its on-demand delivery service Caviar to DoorDash for $410 million. The acquisition that took place is the combination of Cash and DoorDash preferred Stock. 

Square CEO Jack Dorsey, who also runs Twitter, said – “We have seen a lot of opportunities to strengthen both these ecosystems but those opportunities require more focus and more investment” and further added – “To increase our focus, we decided to sell our Caviar business to DoorDash.”

The acquisition is poised to be a profitable move on DoorDash’s end who will now get access to the restaurant and user base that Caviar operated in. To streamline the food ordering process on the customers’ front, DoorDash would integrate Caviar’s listings into the main DoorDash app to offer more services to the customers. 

Validating the move of buying its rival, DoorDash CEO Tony Xu said in a statement- “We have long-admired Caviar, which has a coveted brand, an exceptional portfolio of premium restaurants and leading technology. The acquisition further enhances the breadth of our merchant selection, enabling us to offer customers even more choice when they order through DoorDash. We look forward to welcoming the Caviar team to DoorDash and expanding our partnership with Square in the future.”

In terms of the market share, DoorDash had tasted its fair share in the market even before the acquisition. According to one of the analytics companies Second Measure, more people used DoorDash last month as compared to any other food delivery companies. 

And this relatively good presence and demand in the market helped the company earn over 34% of all U.S. meal delivery sales compared to GrubHub.

A Quick Background of Caviar and DoorDash

Caviar first launched in San Francisco in 2013, aimed to offer premium experience as compared to other food delivery platforms leading at the time, like Grubhub and Seamless.  

To bring in something new in the market, Caviar became the first food-delivery platforms to employ its own ‘food messengers’ instead of relying on the restaurants’ delivery drivers. 
DoorDash founded in 2013 is an on-demand food delivery service. It is one of the several technology companies that use logistics services for offering food delivery from restaurants on-demand. In the 6 years of its existence, the company has expanded to 56 markets and more than 600 cities across North America.