Uber is on the verge of acquiring Germany’s Delivery Hero, in what would amount to a global-scale earthquake for the food delivery business. With combined business figures reaching into the billions of dollars, the giant created by this deal promises to become the clear dominant force in a market that has continued to grow in recent years.
And it looks like Glovo, the Spanish company, will be one of the biggest companies affected.
Delivery Hero, one of the leading players in the global food delivery sector, has officially confirmed that it “is engaged in advanced negotiations with Uber Technologies, Inc. regarding a possible public takeover offer addressed to all shareholders of the Company.”
In this way, Delivery Hero confirms the information first reported exclusively by Bloomberg on Tuesday, which spoke of Uber’s interest in taking control of the company through a public takeover bid. At present, Uber already held a significant stake in the German company, amounting to around 25% of its shares. Other sources explain that Delivery Hero’s current market value is around €11.2 billion ($12.8 billion).
If completed, the deal would allow U.S.-based Uber, which has been active in the sector for years through Uber Eats, to dominate it with overwhelming superiority over its rivals (Just Eat Takeaway, DoorDash, or Meituan). Let us remember that Delivery Hero is a massive corporate group, capable of generating €14.8 billion in annual revenue and handling 12 million orders per day, and it has grown substantially since its beginnings in Berlin in 2011 by acquiring, one after another, some of the regional leaders in markets across Europe, Asia, the Americas, and Africa, such as Foody, Foodora, Yemeksepeti, Pedidos Ya…
…. and Glovo.
In 2021, Delivery Hero bought 44% of the shares of Glovo, the benchmark food delivery company in Spain, although that was only the beginning of a relationship that, by the summer of 2022, led it to take control of 99% of the company founded by Oscar Pierre for around €2.3 billion, a figure far below some previous valuations.
Since then, things have not always gone smoothly for this duo, which has had to face various regulatory crises worldwide (as happened with the so-called “Rider Law” in Spain) as well as a high-profile penalty from the European Commission. In 2025, the EU body fined Delivery Hero and Glovo €329 million after accusing them of participating in a cartel in the food delivery sector.
According to Brussels, the two companies eliminated competition between them by dividing geographic markets, exchanging highly confidential commercial information, and agreeing to a “no-poach” arrangement not to hire each other’s employees, harming both consumers and working conditions across the sector. It was the first time the Commission had penalized a no-poach agreement in the labor market and the anticompetitive use of a minority shareholding. Since both companies admitted their involvement in the cartel, they benefited from a settlement procedure that reduced their fines by 10%, resulting in a €223 million penalty for Delivery Hero and €105 million for Glovo.
As you may have guessed, and with that precedent, the potential acquisition of Delivery Hero faces some regulatory hurdles, especially in Europe, where EU authorities have been particularly watchful in recent years regarding any large-scale corporate deal that could significantly reduce competition. After the transaction, Uber would go on to control the market in countries such as Spain, Portugal, or Italy through Glovo; Romania and Bulgaria through FoodPanda; and the Nordic countries through Foodora.
We will have to wait for the deal to be completed to see how Brussels reacts.
Image: ChatGPT
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