Yelp Inc. (NYSE:YELP), has bought the U.S. online food-ordering service Eat24Hours.com (“Eat24″) for $134 million, of which $75 million will be paid in cash and the rest in shares of Yelp.
Yelp and Eat24 have already been collaborating with online food orders, and the acquisition will deepen the integration between the companies on the Web.
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It is estimated that the majority of the Eat24 purchase money will flow into the pockets of the two Israelis, Nadav Sharon and Haim Erez, who founded the company. They sent an excited email to their employees yesterday, announcing:
Good morning, lovely people. Have 5 minutes for me? I hope you brought an extra pair of pants today because I have really exciting news… WE’RE GETTING MARRIED!
EAT24 is joining Yelp!
Whaaaaat?!? Yes. The company we built together – our service, our experience, our app, our voice – will now get to shine on an even bigger stage. By joining Yelp, we have the opportunity to spread the love and serve over 130MM people each month, plus add 1MM restaurants nationwide! How awesome is that?
130MM people! That’s a bigger audience than the Super Bowl, and we get to reach them every single day.
The email went on for a lot more than that, but you got the gist of it: they made a lot of money, they’re happy, please don’t make loud noises.
Yelp shares were up 6.5 percent at $44.88 in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange. That’s a good sign. But I’ll bet the reaction over at Yelp was more… restrained?
Yelp is going to be in direct competition with GrubHub, which last week purchased the restaurant delivery service DiningIn, and is in negotiations to buy Restaurants on the Run. But unlike the Yelp-Eat24 connection, GrubHub until now has not done the actual food delivery. This will now be changing, obviously.
This is the Eat24 2015 Super Bowl commercial.
