Newly minted unicorn Deliveroo acquires Scottish software firm Cultivate to improve payment experience

In a recent development, Deliveroo, an online food delivery platform, has acquired Edinburgh-based software design, and development firm Cultivate for an undisclosed amount. Consequently, Deliveroo also creates a tech hub in Edinburgh, which is the company’s first UK tech office outside of its London HQ.

For the uninitiated, Cultivate is specialised in delivering custom software applications, user experience, visual design, and business strategy to clients across the UK and internationally.

Why this acquisition?

The premise of acquisition is to improve the payment experience, data, and planning, financial support for both riders and restaurants alike.

Through this acquisition, both the companies will develop new ways to improve payment processes to the riders and restaurants. They are also planning to build on Deliveroo’s ‘Cash Out’ feature, which allows riders to access their earnings immediately.

Secondly, the British unicorn will provide more information about their earning to both riders and restaurants, so they can both better manage their finances.

Thirdly, the London-based online delivery platform, and Cultivate will be working to develop new ways to offer financial support.

Deliveroo – Headsup!

Based out of London, Deliveroo is an online food delivery platform that allows users to order food from local restaurants.Founded by Greg Orlowski and William Shu in 2012, the company is on a mission to transform the way the world thinks about food delivery.

The company is headquartered in London, with 2,500 employees in offices around the globe. Moreover, it operates in over 500 towns and cities across 14 markets. Notably, Deliveroo has raised a total of €1.3B in funding over 8 rounds. Their latest funding was raised on May 17, 2019, from a Series G round.

Commenting on the deal, Deliveroo VP of Engineering Dan Winn said:

As a British company, Deliveroo is proud to be investing in Edinburgh and creating more high skilled jobs in the UK. Edinburgh is one of the UK’s fastest-growing tech hubs, with access to an excellent talent pool of highly skilled people and university graduates. Deliveroo is committed to offering riders flexible, well-paid work and helping restaurants to grow their businesses. Building on Cultivate’s expertise, we are excited to create new products and services that will help us achieve this.

In addition to it, the food delivery platform will continue to back the community initiatives that Cultivate already supports, including Prewired, which helps young people learn to code, and codebar, who support underrepresented groups develop software engineering skills.

Expanding workforce!

In addition to the new office, the UK’s tech unicorn will initially double the headcount in the next 12 months in Edinburgh and is aiming to house 50 highly-skilled tech jobs in the new Scottish office within three years, more than trebling the current workforce.

Furthermore, Deliveroo’s new tech hub will be made up of engineers, product managers, user researchers, designers, and data scientists and will grow in the years to come.

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