Uber is shutting down alcohol delivery service Drizly three years after the taxi company acquired it for $1.1 billion. Drizly ran independently all this time, and Uber eventually decided to shut it down, as first reported by Worthy.
At the time of the acquisition, Uber planned to integrate Drizly into Uber Eats, but never did. The company said the Drizly brand will be discontinued by March 2024.
“After three years of operating Drizly independently within the Uber family, we’ve decided to spin off the business and focus on the core Uber Eats strategy of helping consumers get almost anything – from food to groceries to alcohol – all in one app” . Pierre-Dimitri Gore-Coty, SVP Delivery at Uber, said in a statement to TechCrunch. “We are grateful to the Drizly team for their many contributions to developing the BevAlc delivery category as an industry leader.”
In 2020, Drizly disclosed that it was affected by a data breach that affected 2.5 million customers. Last year, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ordered Drizly to delete all personal data that was not necessary to provide services. In addition, he asked the alcohol delivery service and CEO James Cory Rellas to implement a strong safety program.
The company aims to focus on alcohol delivery through Uber Eats, where it claims to have doubled business in the category globally. Uber currently operates alcohol delivery through Uber Eats in 35 US states and 25 countries around the world.
In 2020, prior to the Drizly acquisition, Uber acquired Postmates for $2.65 billion in an all-stock deal.
Last year, Uber Eats began exploring chatbot-based features to let users find restaurant deals and reorder their favorites. The company also started allowing users to order from two nearby stores at the same time.
