Onward and upward: Uber Eats acquires food delivery startup that makes its own food

Uber Eats just partnered with David Chang’s ‘ghost restaurant’ Ando, as it continues to build out its food delivery infrastructure.

With companies like Amazon and others moving closer to the action in the delivery space, Uber food delivery branch Uber Eats has acquired Ando, a delivery-only restaurant founded by Momofuku owner and chef David Chang.

Onward and upward: Uber Eats acquires food delivery startup that makes its own food

According to Ando’s website, the company is shutting down its service effective immediately as they begin to “integrate with Uber Eats.”

What’s Ando?

The cheesesteak and fried chicken “joint” is considered a ‘ghost restaurant’ (a restaurant with no physical location), which relies heavily on its tech to maintain food freshness during delivery.

Since launching in 2016, Uber Eats has been one of their main delivery partners, and now — with the announcement — their only delivery partner.

Uber Eats is growing like crazy

A surefire bright spot in Uber’s tumultuous last couple of years, Uber Eats is profitable in 27 of their 120 global markets and is on pace to surpass $3B in sales this year.

The number of Uber Eats driver trips grew more than 24x from 2016 to 2017, and in some areas of the world, Uber Eats brings in more revenue than the ride service itself.

According to Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, “[Uber Eats will] be the largest food delivery company in the world this year.”

A beautiful partnership

With so many competitors (like Deliveroo, Grubhub, and Caviar to name just a few) looking to carve out a niche in the food delivery game, Uber Eats’ partnership with Ando is likely just the first of more joint ventures.

As for Ando, they gain access to a larger audience for their signature cuisine and the chance to set the standard for restaurant technology as Uber Eats continues to build out their menu of future restaurant partners.

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