Shares of Blue Apron Holdings skyrocketed in premarket trading on Friday after the meal-kit company announced it has entered into a merger deal with Wonder Group, a privately held startup founded by former Walmart executive and Jet.com cofounder Marc Lore.
The deal means that Blue Apron stockholders will get $13 per share in cash, an increase of 137% over the stock’s closing price on Thursday.
Wonder’s acquisition of the once high-flying pioneer in the meal-kit delivery space is expected to “create a leading platform for mealtime, enhancing mealtime with choice, flexibility and convenience through two exceptional brands,” Blue Apron said on Friday.
The merger agreement has been approved by the company’s board and is expected to close in the fourth quarter of this year, subject to regulatory approval.
Wonder’s acquisition values Blue Apron at $103 million.
Founded in 2012, Blue Apron was valued at nearly $2 billion when it went public in 2017, but its path to profitability was always hazy, particularly with its high customer acquisition costs and competitors like Amazon reported to be getting into the space. Around the time of its IPO, Fast Company‘s Ruth Reader wondered aloud whether Blue Apron “would even exist” in five years. By the end of 2018, the company’s share price had dipped below $1.
A pandemic-era boom wasn’t enough to turn things around, and earlier this year, Blue Apron sold its operational infrastructure to FreshRealm, leaving it to focus on its DTC business as an “asset-light” company.
With the Wonder Group acquisition, the Blue Apron brand will survive—at least for now. According to Blue Apron, current customers can expect operations to continue, albeit “with expected new synergies between consumer-facing apps and delivery logistics.”
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