I'll preamble this by saying that I worked as an early team member at a startup in the on-demand food delivery space. Our team was able to grow the company from its infancy to $1.5B+ in annual GMV, so I'm both close to the space, and passionate about it.<p>With this in mind, here's my outlook on the acquisitions that DoorDash has been making as of late (ie- Lvl5, Caviar, and Scotty Labs).<p>Many people have speculation about why these acquisitions were made – some think it's a growth / market play (Caviar), other's think that it's a product dev / integration play (Lvl5).<p>I think both are right; it's inevitable that DD wants to set up their infrastructure and become as defensible as possible by developing a deeper product before they IPO<p>But, I truly think the main reason DD has made these acquisitions is a talent play. I think that they have found some really solid people who are smart, and whom they can integrate into their team. So, the quickest way to grow their own team is through acquisition.<p>This is a subjective opinion, and I could be way off, but I'm interested to hear what others think!