Uber Technologies announced an agreement with minority shareholders to acquire 100% of Cornershop, the Chilean startup founded in 2015 and in which the San Francisco-based giant already owned 53% of the shares since the third quarter of 2020.
The North American company agreed to buy the remaining 47% stake in Cornershop that it does not yet own for around shares in the San Francisco-based company. As Uber informed the United States authorities, the transaction would close in July. “With this transaction, the company is acquiring a remaining approximately 47% stake in exchange for approximately 29 million shares of the company,” the company reported in the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC). Based on the valuation of Uber’s shares, Bloomberg estimated the price to pay to be about $ 1.4 billion.
Uber entered the Conershop property in the third quarter of 2020 with a majority stake, after the failure of a partnership that the Chilean firm had agreed with the giant Wal-Mart and that was frustrated after opposition from Mexican regulatory authorities.
“We know that consumers are looking for more and more things to be delivered to their doorstep in a matter of minutes or hours, and this is evidenced in the data: the supermarket purchase and delivery business and new Uber verticals now. has exceeded an annual execution rate of $ 3 billion by 2021. That is why we are very excited to deepen our commitment to the Cornershop team and support their vision as they scale it globally. Together, we will duplicate the strategy of bringing the same-day grocery shopping and delivery to the Uber platform worldwide, ”said Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of Uber, in a statement.
“I am very proud that we will be part of Uber’s global technology platform,” said Oskar Hjertonsson, one of the founders of Cornershop, through his Twitter account of him. The CEO of Cornershop added: “But to really unlock the full potential of this partnership, we must operate as one company.”
“We launched Cornershop in 2015 in Chile and Mexico, and since Uber joined as an investor in 2019, we have worked together to expand to hundreds of cities in more and more countries on the continent, including Brazil and the United States. As we look to the future of grocery shopping and delivery, retail, and other new home delivery offerings, uniting Uber and Cornershop will accelerate our shared ambition to provide instant access to local commerce. I am proud that Uber trusts this Latin American company for such an important global opportunity and I am grateful for all the great work that the team has done in recent years, ”concluded Oskar Hjertonsson, in the company’s official statement.
Cornershop was founded by Oskar Hjertonsson and Chilean engineers Daniel Undurraga and Juan Pablo Cuevas, who have remained linked to the company. Uber announced that following the closing of the transaction, Cornershop will continue to operate under its current leadership team, which will report to Uber’s Director of Delivery, Pierre Dimitri Gore-Coty.
With this transaction, the company will be valued at about US $ 3,000 million, highlighted in a statement ALLVP, one of the first institutional that joined Cornershop, recalled today, in the summer of 2015, when the company had a value of only US $ $ 8 million, just before its launch in Chile and Mexico.
“When we met Oskar, Dani and Chaq, it was obvious that they were destined for great things. Cornershop’s journey required not only all of his experience, talent, speed and ambition, but also courage and perseverance in the face of adversity. I will always be grateful to the team for the trip of my life ‘. he mentions Federico Antoni, former Cornershop board member and co-founder of ALLVP.
