After searching for a buyer for more than two years, Just Eat Takeaway.com has finally closed its menu on Grubhub. On Tuesday, the Dutch food delivery giant said it had completed the sale of its US business to Wonder, a food startup founded and led by e-commerce veteran Marc Lore. The deal values the company at $650 million, but Grubhub will have $500 million in debt. Adding more M&A costs, Just Eat Takeaway will walk away with just $50 million, a fraction of the $7.3 billion value Grubhub will have when Just Eat Takeaway completes its entire deal in 2020. It was first announced in November 2024, underscoring its continued downsizing- continuation – or the right size? – in the industry to focus more on profitability after years of overinvestment and unrealistic growth targets. Just Eat Takeaway said it would focus on “investing in countries where it has the greatest competitive advantage.” In Wonder’s case, Lore was a legend in the e-commerce world, before founding and selling the company to Amazon and Walmart. Wonder has raised around $ 1.7 billion and has ambitions to go public in the coming year at $ 40 billion in value, Lore has said, but that means the business must grow a lot beyond now. Grubhub gives it a national footprint — even though it’s been operating under heavy debt for some time. The challenge will be whether Wonder can finally turn it around.
