OrderUp acquired by Groupon

Baltimore on-demand food delivery startup OrderUp has been acquired by Groupon.

OrderUp, the six-year-old Canton-based startup founded by Chris Jeffery and Jason Kwicien, will help Groupon expand into online food ordering. In turn, OrderUp gets access to Groupon’s big customer base.
“Groupon has massive scale and users and focuses on local markets just like we do,” Jeffery, OrderUp’s CEO, said in emailed responses to questions from Technical.ly Baltimore. “They’re also a great team and we believe that we can do anything with great people.”
Groupon has 25 million active customers in North America that browse for online deals. Bringing on OrderUp represents the company’s first move into food ordering. On Thursday afternoon, national outlets like Bloomberg were already suggesting Groupon is looking to take on big players like GrubHub.
“Online food ordering and delivery represents an untapped opportunity for Groupon and serves as a natural extension of our local marketplace,” Groupon CEO Eric Lefkofsky said in a release announcing the deal.
OrderUp, which now has a presence in about 40 cities and college towns where the company’s leaders identified lacking options in online food delivery, allows customers to order food from nearby restaurants on its app and employs drivers to deliver. The company will remain a standalone brand, and customers can still use same app and login to order food. The company will keep its headquarters in the Can Company building, according to the release.
“OrderUp is focused on winning in the space and this partnership gives us confidence that we can win quickly and expand the Baltimore team,” Jeffery said, adding that the company is “more excited than ever to build a great business in Baltimore.” Jeffery declined to disclose terms of the deal.
The company has been expanding rapidly over the last year following a $7 million Series A round. Numerous hiring announcements have come along with the geographic growth, including additions of C-level executives that worked with large food companies like Domino’s, and tech companies like AOL and Microsoft. The company has also amassed local talent, hiring former Haystack founder Eric Meyer and acquiring dev startup Back Forty.
At OrderUp headquarters on Thursday, the celebration was on:

@OrderUp acquired by @Groupon pic.twitter.com/QBQ9wdOntI

— Dana Smith (@danagullard) July 16, 2015