Uber EATS Seems To Be Launching In Barcelona – Again

Uber has more than often been connected with controversy and trouble in Barcelona. Even though most people, at least in the startup ecosystem, most are waiting for the black cars to return.

Now, eight months after Uber EATS was shut down in Barcelona, it looks like they’re trying again.

Right now, the company has five vacant positions in the city, and they’re all by Uber EATS – the company’s food delivery service.

• Also read: Barcelona Tech Investments Recap: Q2 2016 – more than €30 million over 18 companies

VTC model

In late 2015 Uber announced that they would move over to the VTC (black car) model, challenging Cabify and other smaller black car companies in Madrid.

The challenge with the VTC model, is that there’s only a certain amount of certificates for cars, and in Barcelona the number of certificates available are too few, compared with Madrid, where the company has been back in business for a while.

In Barcelona they are looking for a general manager, a marketing manager, two managers of operations and a head of partnerships in the city.

Transportation, not taco’s

The topic has been a hot potato on twitter, and in the Barcelona startup slack group.

And as Barcelona is swarming with cycles and scooters delivering food through on-demand apps (Deliveroo, Glovo, Take-Eat-Easy, JustEat etc.), people in the startup ecosystem were hoping for more than just Uber EATS.

As one person said in the Slack group StartupBCN: “People need Uber in this city, not more pizza delivery services”. Others have been defending taxis saying apps like Mytaxi and Hailo are working well.

Barcinno has reached out to Uber for a comment, but have not gotten any answer from the company.

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