It’s been a slow roll toward the finish line, but Amsterdam-based Just Eat Takeaway.com completed its acquisition of Grubhub in an all-stock transaction that represents JET’s entry into the U.S. food delivery market. Grubhub President and CFO Adam DeWitt was named CEO, former CEO and founder Matt Maloney joined the board as managing director.
JET said its “Enlarged Group” is now built around four of the world’s most attractive delivery markets, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany and the United States.
Adam DeWitt is Grubhub’s new CEO
Grubhub is the third-largest U.S. restaurant delivery provider according to Bloomberg Second Measure. Its May 2021 Share of Sales market update placed Grubhub and its Seamless and Eat24 subsidiaries at 17 percent of the U.S. market, compared to Uber Eats at 21 percent and DoorDash at 57 percent. Grubhub is the leading delivery provider in New York City, slightly ahead of DoorDash, and in second place—to DoorDash—in Chicago, Philadelphia and Boston.
Just Eat Takeaway.com CEO and founder Jitse Groen said the new company instantly becomes the market leader in Europe, Canada and Australia, “with very strong positions in the most important markets in the United States. It is humbling to run such a company after our start in Holland more than twenty years ago.”
Maloney said, “I couldn’t be more excited to enter this next chapter of Grubhub’s story with the global leadership and experience of the Just Eat Takeaway team. Our companies share an unwavering focus on supporting restaurants and our communities around the world. Together we will continue to innovate and break new ground in our industry as we each have separately for the past 20 years.”
Maloney will be one of four executives running the global business, and he will have a specific focus on North America, as well as global integration and coordination. DeWitt will “lead all functions across the U.S. business in his new role” according to a Grubhub announcement.
“I’m also confident that Adam will be successful in further building on the incredible progress that we’ve made at Grubhub in a relatively short period of time,” Maloney added. “He has been an indispensable part of our executive team going all the way back to 2011, even before our merger with Seamless. Adam’s leadership has been instrumental in our growth from $20 million in revenue in 2011 to over $2 billion.”
DeWitt said, “I’m honored to be the next CEO of Grubhub and ready to continue the great progress we’ve made over the past year in the U.S. We have a strong position in most large markets, the best team, and I am excited to join our partners at JET to build the leading global online ordering platform.
The increased scale, resources and support as part of JET will help us differentiate and capture a disproportionate share of growth in the U.S. Grubhub will now have greater flexibility to make strategic, long-term investment decisions than before. We are laser focused on being the platform of choice for diners, restaurants and drivers.”
According to its year-end 2020 earnings results, Grubhub increased its overall revenue significantly throughout the pandemic, in line with other third-party delivery platforms. During the previous year, its gross food sales grew to $8.7 billion, which is a 47 percent jump from the $5.9 billion in food sales at the end of 2019.
