US food delivery app DoorDash offers to buy UK rival Deliveroo for $3.6bn

DoorDash is offering to buy its UK-based rival Deliveroo for $3.6bn (£2.7bn), Deliveroo said on Friday.

Deliveroo said that its board was in talks with DoorDash over the offer and that a firm offer had not been made, according to statement sent to the Guardian. Should a firm offer of £1.80 ($2.40) a share be made, Deliveroo said, “it would be minded to recommend such an offer to Deliveroo shareholders.

“There can be no certainty that any firm offer for Deliveroo will be made. At this time, shareholders are advised to take no action in respect to the possible offer,” the company said in a statement.

The company gave DoorDash until 23 May to give a firm offer, according to Reuters.

DoorDash is currently the largest food delivery app in the United States, with 42 million monthly active users in 2024 and $10.7bn in revenue in 2024. The San Francisco-based company was founded in 2012 and has a presence in more than 25 countries.

In 2021, DoorDash acquired the Finnish delivery company Wolt for €7bn, or what was $8.1bn at the time, in stock.

Deliveroo, which is based in London, was founded in 2013 and is the second largest food delivery app in the UK. The company said that it averaged 7.1 million active users in 2024 with £2.07bn in revenue.

Both DoorDash and Deliveroo have, in recent years, tried to expand their user base by getting into grocery deliveries and making non-food deliveries.

In an interview with Fortune in February, DoorDash’s CEO, Tony Xu, said that the company’s presence feels like “a speck of dust”.

“We’re really only addressing a couple of problems with first-party delivery and first-party ordering,” Xu said. “If you think about how do you become a digital powerhouse, you’re going to have to do more than that.”