Deliveroo has signed its 10,000th restaurant in Australia as the company's global expansion continues

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Deliveroo announced on Tuesday that it has signed up its 10,000th restaurant in Australia as the company looks to fight off Uber and others in the hotly contested food delivery market.

The British startup said the 10,000th restaurant to join its platform was Lucio Pizzeria in Sydney, which won the "Best Pizza in Australia" award at the World's Best Pizza Championship in Italy last year.

The increase in the number of restaurants using Deliveroo means that the average Deliveroo customer in Australia now sees double the number of restaurants to order from compared to the start of the year, Deliveroo said.

Deliveroo, worth in excess of £1.5 billion ($AU2.8 billion), was founded by former banker Will Shu in London in 2013. It launched in Australia in 2015 and today it has over 6,500 delivery riders across 13 cities including Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane, Gold Coast, Perth and Canberra.

There are no plans to slow down either. Deliveroo said it is on target to have 17,000 restaurants in Australia on the platform by the end of 2019.

Deliveroo said its growth in Australia is partly down to the introduction of Marketplace+, which enables restaurants with their own fleets of riders to be on the platform and fulfil deliveries using their couriers or Deliveroo riders.

Uber and other companies like Eat Now are competing with Deliveroo in Australia, where supermarket prices are relatively high. Deliveroo is aiming to differentiate itself from its competitors by offering more choice to customers than its rivals.

Levi Aron, Country Leader for Deliveroo Australia, said: “Deliveroo’s mission is to become the definitive food company. What sets us apart is that we offer our customers the biggest choice. Whether it’s breakfast, lunch or dinner; fresh meat for your BBQ or indeed groceries and meal packs - we’re there for you."

In addition to Australia, Deliveroo also operates in Belgium, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Ireland, Netherlands, Singapore, Spain, Taiwan, United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom.

Uber was in talks to buy Deliveroo in 2018, according to a Bloomberg report in September 2018. The talks "broke down" because Uber and Deliveroo were miles apart on their valuations, according to a report from The Financial Times in October 2018.