Postmates
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Company type | Private |
---|---|
Industry | Logistics |
Founded | May 1, 2011 |
Founder | Bastian Lehmann Sam Street Sean Plaice |
Headquarters | San Francisco, California, United States |
Area served | Select cities in United States |
Key people | Bastian Lehman (CEO) Sean Plaice, Vivek Patel, Kristin Schaefer (Management Team) Nabeel Hyatt, Brian Singerman, Scott Banister(Board Members) |
Products | Mobile app, website |
Services | Delivery (commerce) |
Revenue | $1.0 billion (2018) |
Website | postmates |
Postmates is an American company that employs couriers to deliver goods locally. As of February 2019[update], Postmates operates in 2,940 U.S. cities.[2]
The service relies on mobile phone applications and their Global Positioning System capabilities to match inventories and consumer demand.[3]
Launched in 2011, Postmates is one of many on-demand delivery companies in the United States providing delivery from restaurants and stores that previously did not offer goods delivery.
Postmates is an example of an on-demand company. Postmates co-founder Bastian Lehmann calls the company "anti-Amazon".[3]
History
Postmates was founded in 2011 by Bastian Lehmann, Sean Plaice, and Sam Street and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.[4] Postmates was part of Angelpad's first accelerator cohort.[5]
In December 2014, Postmates opened its application programming interface to merchants to allow small businesses to compete for delivery of consumer goods with larger companies such as Amazon.[6][7][8][9] In the same month, the company announced that it had completed its millionth delivery and that it had over 6,000 drivers in its network.[10]
In June 2015, Postmates announced that it had surpassed 2.5 million deliveries across 28 markets and expanded its fleet to 13,000 couriers.[11]
In September 2015, Postmates updated the app, which added the ability to track delivery, gift meals to others, and the estimated delivery time.[12]
In November 2017, Postmates launched service in Mexico City, its first location outside the US. [13] It ceased operations in the country in December 2019, citing a lack of growth and desire to focus more on the U.S. market.[14]
In 2018, Postmates launched service in 134 new cities in the United States, bringing its total number of cities in the United States up to 550.[15]
On December 13, 2018, Postmates unveiled Serve, its internally developed autonomous delivery rover. [16]
In January 2019, Postmates raised $100 million investment by BlackRock together with Spark Capital, Founders Fund, Uncork Capital, and Slow Ventures. The total valuation of the company reached $1.85 billion.[17]
In May 2019, Postmates made a controversial decision to change its pay structure, removing the minimum guarantee. Many couriers have expressed dissatisfaction with this, and a strike has been organized by Working Washington, urging couriers to refuse jobs on Postmates on June 15, 2019.[18]
References
- ^ "Postmates Company Profile". Craft. Retrieved December 9, 2019.
- ^ "Postmates confidentially files for IPO". Reuters. Retrieved 2019-02-07.
- ^ a b "Location services: How GPS delivery is changing shopping". BBC News. Retrieved 2015-02-11.
- ^ "About Postmates". postmates.com. Retrieved 2015-02-11.
- ^ Lynley, Matthew. "Postmates To Roll Its Way Into London". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2017-06-09.
- ^ "Amazon Not as Unstoppable as It Might Appear". nytimes.com. Retrieved 2015-02-11.
- ^ "Will Postmates Dominate Same Day Delivery with Its Open API?". sRacked SF. Retrieved 2015-02-11.
- ^ "Postmates, Powering On-Demand Logistics". blog.postmates.com. Retrieved 2015-02-11.
- ^ "Postmates Is Launching An API To Let Third-Party Sellers Offer Local Delivery | TechCrunch". techcrunch.com. Retrieved 2015-02-11.
- ^ "1 Million Deliveries Deep, Postmates Formally Launches An On-Demand API". techcrunch.com. Retrieved 2015-02-11.
- ^ "We've Raised $80M, Led by Tiger Global Management". blog.postmates.com. Retrieved 2015-07-06.
- ^ Dickey, Megan Rose (2015-09-21). "Postmates Unveils Revamped Platform, Announces 4 Million Deliveries". techcrunch.com. Retrieved 2015-11-06.
- ^ Dickey, Megan Rose (15 November 2017). "Postmates launches in first international city". Techcrunch.
- ^ "So long, Postmates: food delivery service leaves Mexico". El Universal English. Retrieved 2019-12-04.
- ^ "Postmates launches food delivery in 134 additional US cities". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2018-10-18.
- ^ "Postmates'Quest To Build The Delivery Robot Of The Future". WIRED. Retrieved 2018-12-13.
- ^ "Postmates lines up another $100M ahead of IPO". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2019-01-11.
- ^ "Postmates workers want minimum delivery guarantees and at least $15 per hour". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2019-04-21.