McDonald’s Corp. is buying Israeli digital startup Dynamic Yield Ltd., in a bid to improve in-store ordering and online marketing at the burger giant.
As part of the deal announced Monday, McDonald’s MCD, -0.58% will pay more than $300 million for closely held Dynamic Yield, people familiar with the matter said. The deal is the fast-food giant’s first acquisition in years and its biggest in two decades.
McDonald’s will use Dynamic Yield’s technology at its drive-through windows, where digital displays will change in real-time based on factors such as weather and what the customer is ordering. During heat waves, for instance, a drive-through display could promote a McDonald’s ice-cream cone.
The move is a sign of the burger chain’s increasing willingness to dabble in new technologies to better compete in the fiercely competitive fast-food industry. McDonald’s is aggressively expanding technology in its restaurants through self-ordering kiosks, a mobile-pay function and through delivery with Uber Technologies Inc.’s UberEats service. Chief Financial Officer Kevin Ozan has said that McDonald’s wants to focus this year on better promoting its delivery service.
An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com.
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