Just Eat, an online takeaway service expected to seek a stock market listing this year, has bought rival Meal2Go to improve the electronic point of sale (EPOS) technology it can offer its thousands of partner restaurants.
The deal will enable Just Eat to offer a central system for managing orders to the 36,000 restaurants signed up to its online ordering service, the company said on Tuesday, without indicating how much it paid for its rival.
It will also add more than 1,100 takeaway restaurants, mostly in Birmingham, central England, to its network. Like Just Eat, customers use Meal2Go to order from local providers such as takeaway outlets serving Indian and Chinese food.
London-based Just Eat, which was founded in Denmark in 2001, said it has received more than 100 million orders since the website launched and generates 700 million pounds ($1.2 billion) in annual revenue for the restaurant industry.
A Financial Times report this year said the group, which is backed by venture capital firms Vitruvian Partners, Index Ventures, Greylock Partners and Redpoint Ventures, was expected to launch an initial public offering in London by April or May, valuing the company between 700 million pounds and 900 million pounds.
