Uber is shutting down its alcohol delivery service Drizly, three years after the company acquired it for $1.1 billion.
This comes as the company looks to consolidate its delivery offerings all under the Uber Eats brand, bringing more product selections within one app.
In an email to Food On Demand, Uber confirmed the Drizly business will shutter at the end of March.
“After three years of Drizly operating independently within the Uber family, we’ve decided to close the business and focus on our core Uber Eats strategy of helping consumers get almost anything—from food to groceries to alcohol—all on a single app,” Pierre Dimitri Gore-Coty, SVP of delivery at Uber said in a statement.
At the time of the acquisition in 2021, Uber aimed to integrate Drizly into the Uber Eats platform. However, the Boston-based subsidiary has continued to operate as a standalone app, while providing back-end technology to help liquor stores provide their own deliveries.
Fueled by the pandemic at-home delivery boom, Drizly had grown to become one of the largest marketplaces for alcohol in North America. The purchase by Uber was part of a strategic plan to boost its non-ridesharing side of the business—acquiring the brand just months after buying another delivery company, Postmates.
“We’re grateful to the Drizly team for their many contributions to the growth of the BevAlc delivery category as the original industry pioneer,” Gore-Coty said in a statement.
But the move to shutter will apparently not affect the majority of Drizly customers. An Uber spokesperson relayed that most of these consumers already have Uber Eats accounts.
Uber Eats will continue to offer alcohol delivery across 36 states and 25+ countries in addition to restaurant food, grocery, retail and convenience items. The delivery giant states its alcohol category has more than doubled in the last year.
