Deliveroo, one of Europe’s fastest-growing technology companies, has acquired Edinburgh-based software design and development firm Cultivate.
Deliveroo will use the acquisition of Cultivate, which has already built a world-class reputation in software development, to create a tech hub in Edinburgh, the company’s first UK tech office outside of its London HQ.
Deliveroo and Cultivate, located at Edinburgh’s CodeBase tech hub, have established a strong relationship in recent years, with the Scottish tech consultancy helping to build the payments systems which handle the millions of transactions the food delivery giant’s marketplace oversees every day. This acquisition will bring future benefits to riders and restaurants:
● Improving the payments experience for riders and restaurants. Deliveroo and Cultivate will seek to develop new ways to improve payment processes to riders and restaurants, building on Deliveroo’s ‘Cash Out’ feature which allows riders to access their earnings immediately.
● Data and planning. Deliveroo will seek to give riders and restaurants more information on how they are earning through the platform, so they can both better manage their finances.
● Financial support and new services. Deliveroo and Cultivate will be working to develop new ways to offer financial support, for example to help riders save and help restaurants manage their cash flow.
Deliveroo is a British tech success story, and the acquisition demonstrates the company’s ambition to expand its reach beyond London.
Deliveroo will initially double headcount in the next 12 months in Edinburgh and is aiming to house 50 highly-skilled tech jobs in the new Scottish office within three years, more than trebling the current workforce.
Deliveroo’s new tech hub will be made up of engineers, product managers, user researchers, designers and data scientists and will grow in the years to come. This will help to further develop Edinburgh’s burgeoning tech ecosystem.
Deliveroo will continue to back the community initiatives that Cultivate already supports, including Prewired, which helps young people learn to code, and codebar, who support underrepresented groups develop software engineering skills.
The company, founded in 2013 by Will Shu and Greg Orlowski, has also committed to being a main sponsor at this year’s Turing Fest, Scotland’s largest tech festival, taking place at the EICC in Edinburgh (August 27-29 2019). Jonny Brooks-Bartlett, a Data Scientist from Deliveroo’s London team will also be speaking at the event.
Dan Winn, Deliveroo VP of Engineering, said: “As a British company, Deliveroo is proud to be investing in Edinburgh and creating more high skilled jobs in the UK. Edinburgh is one of the UK’s fastest-growing tech hubs, with access to an excellent talent pool of highly skilled people and university graduates. Deliveroo is committed to offering riders flexible, well-paid work and helping restaurants to grow their businesses. Building on Cultivate’s expertise, we are excited to create new products and services that will help us achieve this.”
Cultivate’s Chief Commercial Officer Andy Robinson, who becomes Deliveroo’s Site Lead in Edinburgh, said: “We have a fantastic relationship with Deliveroo, supporting them through an amazing period of growth. We were attracted by the array of interesting problems being tackled by their team, and how they are addressing them using modern and emerging technology. We’re proud to have built such a great team here in Edinburgh, and today’s announcement is a testament to their hard work and expertise in building world-class software. We are excited to continue this work, create highly skilled jobs, and build a centre of tech excellence here in Edinburgh.”
Stephen Coleman OBE, CEO of CodeBase, Scotland’s largest tech campus and home to Cultivate, said: “Cultivate has always been at the centre of the tech scene in Edinburgh and has supported events and initiatives across the board. We are really pleased for the Cultivate team and Deliveroo’s plans to grow here in Scotland and are looking forward to having one of Europe’s top tech companies based here at CodeBase.”