DoorDash Buys Symbioysis to Bolster Billion-Dollar Ad Business

DoorDash will pay $175 million to purchase advertising tech company Symbiosys.

The acquisition was announced Wednesday (June 11) as part of a larger update on the company’s ad business, which DoorDash said now generates more than $1 billion in revenue per year.

“We’re building the future of local commerce advertising,” said Toby Espinosa, vice president of ads at DoorDash. “With new product capabilities, AI-powered tools, and Symbiosys’ offsite reach, businesses of any size can now connect with high-intent consumers seamlessly. Moving forward, every business from local owner-operators to the largest global brands will have the opportunity to grow on DoorDash and beyond with the click of a button.”

Founded by Bashar Kachachi, former product director for Google Ads, Symbiosis allows retail brands to post ads on high-profile platforms like Facebook, YouTube or Google search.

With this deal, DoorDash can offer advertisers — like the more than 150,000 restaurants and brands that use its services — a way to manage their ad places on those spaces as well as on DoorDash’s website and app.

The deal was announced with a slate of new ad-related offerings from DoorDash for its restaurant and brand clients.

For example, the company now offers what it calls “AI tooling” for campaigns, targeting and discounts. This lets smaller eateries provide DoorDash with their goals, targets and budget, while DoorDash’s artificial intelligence (AI) solutions “do the heavy lifting to create customized campaigns that deliver results.”

For brands, there’s what the company calls “sponsored brand enhancements,” which are “engaging new creative visuals like video formats, display images, and product carousels.”

The deal follows two other recent high-profile purchases by DoorDash: hospitality tech company SevenRooms and U.K.-based local commerce platform provider Deliveroo, which it purchased for $3.85 billion in May.

In announcing its agreement to acquire SevenRooms, DoorDash said the deal will expand its commerce platform capabilities and let it help merchants serve customers across all channels.

“With SevenRooms, we’re excited to give local businesses around the globe new ways to bring more guests in the door, build and grow direct relationships with their customers, access best-in-class CRM (customer relationship management), and drive profitability through smarter marketing,” Parisa Sadrzadeh, vice president of strategy and operations at DoorDash, said in a news release at the time.

By purchasing Deliveroo — which operates in more than 30 countries, works with 500,000 local businesses and serves 42 million monthly active users — DoorDash contends it can bolster its position as a platform in global commerce.

The deal will add Deliveroo’s local expertise to DoorDash’s operating playbook, DoorDash CEO and Co-founder Tony Xu said in the release.

“We’ll cover more than 40 countries with a combined population of more than 1 billion people, enabling us to provide more local businesses with the tools and technology they need to thrive,” Xu said.