Just Eat
“Can Just Eat deepen its platform lock-in among UK restaurants, corporate clients, and gig-economy couriers by embedding financial products (corporate meal benefits, courier identity, restaurant capital) directly into its food delivery marketplace?”
Founded as a simple UK restaurant discovery and ordering website, Just Eat scaled into a two-sided marketplace before merging with Takeaway.com in 2020 to form one of the largest global food delivery groups. The company pursued aggressive M&A (Grubhub 2021) but subsequently divested US operations in 2024 to refocus on European markets. On the embedded finance dimension, Just Eat has evolved from pure marketplace to offering corporate meal-benefit products (Just Eat Pay Card — a Mastercard-branded prepaid card) and deploying identity verification infrastructure for its gig-economy courier workforce, signalling a move toward owning more of the financial layer for both businesses and workers on its platform.