Uber Becomes Sole Owner Of Grocery Startup Cornershop

Uber has reached an agreement with the owner of Cornershop to become the Chilean grocery delivery startup’s sole owner.

The company — which acquired a majority stake in Cornershop last year — said in an SEC filing on Friday (June 18) that it was acquiring roughly 47 percent interest from the minority shareholders in exchange for approximately 29 million shares of Uber stock. The deal is expected to close in July and is customary to standard closing conditions.

“Uber already owns ~50 percent of Cornershop, and we’ve seen how working together can deliver great results, like our joint 2020 launch of Brazil, where in no time we became a leading player,” Oskar Hjertsonsson, Cornershop’s founder and CEO, said on Twitter on Monday (June 21). “But to truly unlock the full potential of this partnership, we need to operate as one company.”

Uber first announced its interest in acquiring a stake in the Santiago-based Cornershop in October 2019, but the deal first needed the approval of officials in Chile and Mexico. Chile’s National Economic Prosecutor (FNE) had initially launched an investigation into the deal out of fears that Uber’s purchase of the Cornershop app would hinder online delivery competition, but ultimately concluded that the purchase would not affect competition. Mexico signed off on the deal earlier this year.

Uber has said that once the deal was fully approved, it would expand grocery delivery beyond Mexico, Chile, Canada and Peru and into other regions around the world.

This deal comes on the heels of a new Uber partnership with Walgreens to provide same-day delivery through Uber Eats. The past 12 months have also seen Uber acquire Postmates and the alcohol delivery service Drizly.