Postmates CEO: Profitability Attainable in 2016

According to the company’s CEO, Postmates could start to turn a profit next year — but that doesn’t necessarily mean the people running it will try to make that happen.

Speaking at TechCrunch Disrupt NY on Monday (May 4), Bastian Lehmann said that a decision remains to be made as to whether or not the same-day delivery service company will make a push for profitability in the coming year. As TechCrunch puts forth (from the scene), there is an argument to be made for rapidly growing startups such as Postmates — which was founded in 2011 — to focus their efforts on spending money to further strengthen their assets, rather than jump at the first opportunity to get into the black.

And strengthening its assets Postmates certainly is, having last month partnered with Chipotle and then, just on Monday, announced a New York-based trial with McDonald’s. TechCrunch adds that the company has to date made 2 million deliveries, with the most recent 500,000 of that total coming in over a seven-week period.

Of Postmates’ 10,000-plus couriers in 24 markets, Lehmann remarked, “Within three years, we were able to build the largest on-demand delivery fleet,” according to CNN Money, which also points out that Postmates has raised $58 million in funding since its inception.

But Lehmann made it clear that the company viewpoint on becoming profitable in 2016 remains strictly optional, stating plainly that it will happen only “if we decide to do that.”

Speaking in broad terms of the same-day delivery market, Lehmann, according to TechCrunch, predicts that some amount of consolidation will occur.

“What is crucial in my opinion — this is a space where the first-mover advantage is there,” he said, according to the outlet. “It might not be a winner-take-all but it’s a winner takes most.”