Uber shutting down alcohol delivery app Drizly after buying it for $1.1 billion

Uber is shutting down the alcohol delivery service Drizly just three years after it was acquired for $1.1 billion, the company has announced.

Drizly, which was acquired by Uber in 2021, announced on social media Monday that its services will be shutting down, with orders for alcohol delivery taken through the end of March.

The company boasted a large selection of beer, wine and liquor, which could be ordered from local retailers through the app and delivered to homes in states and cities where alcohol delivery was legal.

Drizly operated as a standalone app, but it will be integrated into its parent company's food delivery app, Uber Eats, which also offers alcohol, food from restaurants and grocery deliveries.

In a statement to Axios, which first reported on Drizly's closure, Pierre-Dimitri Gore-Coty, Uber's SVP of delivery, said it was time to "focus on our core Uber Eats strategy of helping consumers get almost anything − from food to groceries to alcohol − all on a single app."

"We're grateful to the Drizly team for their many contributions to the growth of the BevAlc delivery category as the original industry pioneer," Gore-Coty added in the statement.

Drizly is not the only delivery brand that Uber acquired. It launched its own food delivery competitor Uber Eats in 2015, then acquired Postmates in 2020, which also delivers food, alcohol and groceries.