Deliveroo has acquired Cultivate, an Edinburgh-based software design and development firm. The online food delivery company will use the acquisition to setup a tech hub in Edinburgh, which will be its first UK tech office outside of London.

Cultivate has worked with Deliveroo in the past, helping to build the payments system it uses every day. Deliveroo will seek to use the acquisition to improve the payments experience for riders and restaurants further, as well as looking to give riders and restaurants more information on how they are earning through the platform and offering riders and restaurants new financial support services.

“As a British company, Deliveroo is proud to be investing in Edinburgh and creating more high skilled jobs in the UK,” said Dan Winn, VP of engineering at Deliveroo. “Edinburgh is one of the UKs 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 Cultivates expertise, we are excited to create new products and services that will help us achieve this.”

Deliveroo has promised to continue backing the community initiatives that Cultivate already supports such as Prewired, which helps young people learn to code, and Codebar, which supports underrepresented groups develop software engineering skills.

“We have a fantastic relationship with Deliveroo, supporting them through an amazing period of growth,” said Andy Robinson, chief commercial officer at Cultivate. “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. Were proud to have built such a great team here in Edinburgh, and todays 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.”