Two of the biggest digital food-delivery platforms just announced plans to merge into one. Seamless and GrubHub connect users to local restaurants through online and mobile listings on their websites as well as apps. They both have rating functions and sorting options to help local searchers find restaurants that deliver and place orders.
GrubHub CEO Matt Maloney told Bloomberg, “This has nothing to do with cost savings; it has everything to do with increasing growth.” By combining efforts and resources, the two companies hope to accelerate the addition of both users and restaurants.
Seamless and GrubHub say smartphone and tablet apps are helping to drive rapid growth in online food orders. About 30% of GrubHub’s orders come from mobile while more than 40% of Seamless orders come from mobile. Combined, the two companies processed about $875 million in orders across all platforms in 2012 alone.
Bloomberg points out a new trend of consolidation among vertical starts-ups, likely in an effort to better position themselves against local search giants like Yelp and Google.
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