To help expand its user base, food delivery tech giant Grubhub has partnered with New York-based Foursquare, a mobile app that connects users with personalized experiences in their area, the companies announced Tuesday.
Now, when Foursquare users identify a restaurant they want to order food from, they will be automatically directed to Grubhub’s platform for a seamless order and delivery experience. Foursquare users across the country now have access to more than 57,000 restaurants on Grubhub’s platform.
Additionally, the two companies have combined their data to help users find popular local foods at nearby restaurants by showing the most-ordered dishes.
"Foursquare City Guide is all about delighting users by suggesting new restaurants and providing rich information, like photos, tips and ratings to help them find the best experiences, whether at home or abroad. But every good explorer needs a night in," said Marissa Chacko, the senior director of consumer products at Foursquare, in a statement. "Adding Grubhub directly into the app makes it easier for our community to take a night off, while still enjoying the best local restaurants they can find."
Foursquare, founded in 2009, has raised more than $207 million in funding, according to Crunchbase. In January, the company opened an engineering office in Chicago with plans to add five to six roles. The company already had a 10-person sales team in the Windy City.
The Foursquare partnership news is just the latest in a slew of milestones Grubhub has crossed recently. Revenue for the tech giant has continued to grow and the company has been consistently profitable. It now partners with more than 80,000 restaurants in over 1,600 U.S. cities and London. It has acquired competitors, such as Seamless, Eat24, AllMenus and MenuPages.
Last week, Grubhub announced it was receiving a $200 million investment from Yum Brands, the owner of Kentucky Fried Chicken and Taco Bell, and the company saw its stock increase 30 percent on the day of the announcement.
Grubhub also experienced a major win in federal court Feb. 8 when a San Francisco judge ruled that their delivery drivers are contract workers and not employees, a verdict that essentially allows them to operate in a cheaper manner.
Maria Belousova, Grubhub’s chief technology officer, said in a statement that the company is always looking for ways to enhance its offereings and give users the broadest set of restaurant options.
"By working with Foursquare, we're offering consumers yet another easy way to discover and order takeout from great local restaurants,” she said in a statement. “Adding Foursquare's location intelligence to Grubhub's database of hundreds of millions of takeout orders created unparalleled opportunities to find ideal matches between diners and restaurants across the country."
