Uber has reportedly agreed to acquire the US delivery service Postmates for $2.65bn (£2.09bn) as the ride-hailing giant seeks to strengthen its position within the US food delivery game.

According to Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, the deal is expected to be announced today.

It is believed that the Postmates team, including Chief Executive Officer Bastian Lehmann, will continue to manage Postmates as a service separate from Uber Eats, while Uber Eats Vice President Pierre-Dimitri Gore-Coty continues to lead Uber’s overall delivery business.

Postmates, founded in 2011, was one of the early players in the US mobile food delivery space, but its market share is now massively overshadowed by DoorDash, GrubHub, and Uber Eats.  

Uber’s acquisition of Postmates comes a little under a month after it failed to capture GrubHub, losing out to European food delivery service Just Eat Takeaway in a $7.3bn deal.

At the backend of last year, Uber made a move into the on-demand grocery delivery business when it picked up a majority stake in Cornershop, a Santiago, Chile-based service which provides grocery delivery in Latin America and Canada.