Prosus sells €270M Delivery Hero stake to Uber to satisfy EU regulators
What's the deal? Uber has agreed to buy a 4.5% stake in Berlin-based food delivery group Delivery Hero from ProsusDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → for €270M ($318M). The deal brings Uber's total stake in Delivery Hero to around 7%, having first invested roughly $300M in May 2024.
The sale is not purely commercial. Prosus — the Dutch technology investment firm majority-owned by South Africa's NaspersDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, and itself the majority shareholder in China's Tencent — acquired Just Eat TakeawayDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → for €4.8B in August 2025. The European CommissionDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → approved the deal only on the condition that Prosus significantly reduce its more than 26% stake in Delivery Hero, its largest single holding, within 12 months. The deal, announced on April 17, 2026, is a step toward meeting that deadline.
Why now? The clock is ticking. Prosus has until around August 2026 to shed most of its Delivery Hero stake or risk breaching its EU commitments. Uber is a willing buyer with strategic motivation — it has been aggressively expanding Uber EatsDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → across Europe, targeting new markets including the Czech Republic, Greece, Romania, Austria, Denmark, Finland, and Norway, and expects the moves to generate an additional $1B in gross bookings over three years.
The consolidation logic is straightforward. DoorDash's £2.7B acquisition of Deliveroo — announced around the same time as Prosus's Just Eat deal — has effectively divided the European food delivery market between a small number of scaled players. Uber wants a stronger foothold before the dust settles.
What could go wrong? The sale price has drawn some criticism, with analysts noting the strike price was almost certainly below Prosus's average in-price — and that waiting for the outcome of Delivery Hero's strategic review could have yielded a better return.
Prosus could also sell another portion of its remaining stake to Delivery Hero's second-largest investor, Aspex ManagementDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → — a Hong Kong-based hedge fund that has already called for Delivery Hero to oust its chief executive Niklas ÖstbergDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → and streamline its portfolio. If that happens, Aspex would become Delivery Hero's largest single shareholder, adding a new layer of activist pressure.
The signal: The deal is part of a rapid consolidation reshaping European food delivery. Prosus, DoorDash, and Uber are all repositioning simultaneously — driven by a mix of regulatory compulsion, competitive logic, and the need to achieve profitability in a sector that has haemorrhaged cash for years. The EU's insistence on Prosus reducing its Delivery Hero stake is, in effect, accelerating a consolidation it might otherwise have slowed.
For Uber, incremental stakes in Delivery Hero are a low-risk way to build European influence without committing to a full acquisition — for now.
Sources:
Prosus
Delivery Hero
Tech Funding News
CNBC
Financial Times
The Times
Wall Street Journal
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