DoorDash Inc. is buying advertising tech firm Symbiosys for $175 million, bolstering an ad business that now generates more than $1 billion annually.
Symbiosys, founded by former Google ads product director Bashar Kachachi, lets retail brands run advertisements on major websites like Google search, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest.
According to a report from Bloomberg, acquiring Symbiosys would allow DoorDash to offer its advertisers, which include more than 150,000 restaurants and consumer brands globally, to manage their ad placements on external sites like social media, in addition to the DoorDash app and website.
The deal was announced as part of a major update that DoorDash provided on its ads business, which crossed $1 billion in annualized run rate in 2024, it said in a statement Wednesday. Bloomberg also reported that the company also announced a new suite of advertising tools, which have the potential to provide brands with more quantifiable results from ad banners or sponsored listings on the delivery platform’s home screen, search results or checkout page.
DoorDash is best known for its delivery app, which commands about two-thirds of the US market. But the company has ambitions of further pushing into enterprise-facing tools for restaurants and brands, and also expanding its delivery business internationally. In May, it announced it’s buying London-based delivery company Deliveroo Plc for about $3.9 billion and restaurant tech company SevenRooms Inc. for $1.2 billion, Bloomberg reported.
The Symbiosys acquisition would also allow small- and medium-sized restaurants to access major ad networks, including those owned by Alphabet Inc. and Meta Platforms Inc., Vice President of Ads Toby Espinosa told Bloomberg. “Now we have all of the capabilities for the most part that CPGs need and have on other retail media networks, from Instacart to Uber to all those other folks, you can now activate using the same tools on our marketplace.”
