Today online food delivery service Grubhub announced that it is acquiring Tapingo for $150 million, which is a service that allows you to order ahead and customize your purchase and is especially popular on college campuses. As of the time of the acquisition, Tapingo had over 150 college campus partners.
Tapingo is enabling tens of thousands of order-ahead transactions per day for more than half a million diners at restaurants, diners, and cashier-less stores. Grubhub’s restaurant marketplace and delivery services will be combined with Tapingo’s network of partners to improve pickup and delivery orders.
Grubhub is partnered with more than 85,000 restaurant partners in over 1,600 U.S. cities and London. And Tapingo will be joining some of Grubhub’s other brands like Seamless, LevelUp, Eat24, AllMenus, and MenuPages.
“We are excited to add Tapingo, a company that shares our vision of bringing greater convenience to diners and improving the restaurant ordering and pickup experience through technology,” said Grubhub founder and CEO Matt Maloney in a statement. “We value the college student population, many of whom we hope become life-long Grubhub diners with their first order. Tapingo makes students’ lives easier, allows merchants to efficiently capitalize on online ordering, and enables colleges and universities to give students the technology they’ve come to expect.”
One of the biggest advantages of Tapingo’s technology platform is that it has direct integration in college meal plans and point-of-sale (POS) systems. This ensures better order-taking and transparency on wait times for diners. Some of Tapingo’s campus restaurant partners include Chick-fil-A, Chipotle, Jamba Juice, Panda Express, and Taco Bell. And Tapingo powers the partnerships with food service companies like Aramark and Sodexo.
“Joining Grubhub is an important step forward for Tapingo. Grubhub is the industry leader in food delivery, allowing us to provide even greater value to our campus partners and student diners with access to Grubhub’s technology and delivery expertise,” added Tapingo co-founder and CEO Daniel Almog. “By joining forces with Grubhub’s network of over 85,000 restaurant partners that offer online delivery and pickup, we’ll continue to serve our loyal diners long after they graduate from college, which has always been our aspiration.”
