Delivery Hero gobbles up UK rivals Hungryhouse and Eatitnow

Delivery Hero

Delivery Hero, the Berlin-headquartered international food ordering platform, has completed a full takeover of former rival Hungryhouse in the UK. The German company today also announced the purchase of smaller player Eatitnow.

Delivery Hero already owned a “pivotal stake” in HungryHouse and initiated a merger in March 2012. The full takeover – taking Delivery Hero to 73 per cent with an option for the rest – took place as a share swap. Hungryhouse co-founders Tony Charles and Shane Lake intend to stay involved in the business:

“We believe there is still a lot of growth potential left in this business, and so we reinvested 98 per cent of the purchase price of our shares into Delivery Hero,” Hungryhouse co-founder Tony Charles said.

Charles will now take a leading role in Delivery Hero’s product innovation market. Both company takeovers are expected to “further challenge” Delivery Hero’s main rival Just-Eat, which is active in 14 countries and also on the acquisition path.

Delivery Hero is active in 12 countries across Europe, Australia, South Korea, China and Mexico. It is backed by internet company builder Team Europe (also an investor in VentureVillage’s parent company) among other investors.

Prior to the Hungryhouse takeover, Delivery Hero claimed to work with over 30,000 restaurants worldwide – it’s not clear if that includes Hungryhouse’s 11,000 partner restaurants, which currently generate more than £6 million in sales each month.

Image credit: Flickr user wendalicious