DoorDash boosts IPO size: What to know

DoorDash is getting ready to go public and the public appears to be more than ready for the deal.

The delivery company boosted the IPO offering price, in an updated SEC Filing on Friday, to between $90.00 and $95.00 per share, up from $75.00 and $85.00 announced earlier this week as company executives pitch the deal to investors on their roadshow this week.

This would raise an estimated $2.96 billion, per the filing, and value the company at around $30 billion if the deal prices in the mid-range. That is more than double its valuation earlier this year.

NYSE TICKER: DASH

The San-Francisco-based company will list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker DASH.

DOORDASH CEO SAYS 'DASHERS' WIN AS PROP 22 PASSES IN CALIFORNIA

'DASHERS' DRIVING DELIVERY BOOM

Founded in 2013, DoorDash is one of the main technology-driven delivery players, with more than 18 million customers and 1 million “dashers” who deliver the food from its merchants. Its mission is to enable brick-and-mortar businesses to thrive “in an increasingly convenience-driven economy with rapidly evolving consumer expectations,” according to its Form S-1 Registration Statement.

CEO of DoorDash, Tony Xu, said that he founded the company in pursuit of helping small restaurants and local community workers to “fight the underdog” and succeed even in troubling and changing times like today.

OLDER AMERICANS DEVOURING ONLINE FOOD-ORDERING SERVICES DURING CORONAVIRUS

“While small businesses are vital to our communities and created approximately two-thirds of net new jobs in the United States from 2000 to 2018, they now risk being left behind in the convenience economy where consumers have become accustomed to obtaining everything in a few clicks, a trend that has only accelerated in a COVID world,” Xu said in a letter attached to the IPO prospectus.

CEO TONY XU CHINESE IMMIGRANT 

As a Chinese immigrant, Xu created DoorDash to empower those like his mom, “who came here with a dream to make it on their own.”

Xu and co-founders Stanley Tang and Andrew Fang will all own a portion of shares that wield 20 votes each, whereas common stockholders will only hold one vote per share. Xu will own 41.6% of Class B common stock, with 14.9 million shares, before the offering. Andy Fang and Stanley Tang will also control a large amount of stock. Fang will own nearly 40% shares in Class B common stock, with 13.5 million shares, and Tang will own 39% of the Class B stock, with 13.4 million shares.

DoorDash’s operational playbook will hinge on its logistics platform that can facilitate the local deliveries, merchant services to grow sales in the modern era through customer acquisition, insights and analytics, payment processing and customer support, as well as its membership program, DashPass. DashPass is a membership program where customers can pay a flat monthly delivery fee at around $9.99 for unlimited deliveries primarily from restaurants.

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PANDEMIC LOCKDOWNS BOOST BUSINESS 

As the leading food delivery service in the United States, DoorDash's revenue more than tripled in September from a year earlier. Robust revenue earnings year-over-year show the company’s growth, with a net income of $23 million for the first three months of the pandemic by the end of June, although its increasing expenses have nipped the company’s profitability. In addition to incurring a net loss each year since its founding, it reported a net loss of $667 million in 2019 and $149 million within the first nine months of 2020.

RIVALS ON ALERT

DoorDash’s IPO is poised to compete with the other major delivery services like UberEats, Postmates, Seamless and GrubHub.

Although DoorDash is primarily a third-party delivery service for food, it anticipates that its services will “become a wallet for the physical world where a customer can not only access restaurants” but local businesses in their community, which suggests an expansion to all of the convenience economies in the future.

It wouldn’t be the first time a food delivery app has dabbled beyond the norms. Most recently, Postmates announced that it will launch a new retail platform ahead of the holiday season, where customers can get instant delivery on anything from beauty and wellness products, clothing and home goods. Postmates has also partnered with Walgreens while Instacart has linked arms with 7-Eleven.

Prior to DoorDash’s move to go public, it announced a partnership with Sam’s Club, owned by Walmart, to provide same-day deliveries on prescription drugs.

CALIFORNIA BALLOT INITIATIVE ON GIG WORKERS AMONG COSTLIEST IN STATE'S HISTORY

The company’s IPO announcement comes after a big win for the gig economy and delivery companies in California, where voters passed Prop 22, exempting delivery providers from having to reclassify their drivers as employees. The law would have made hiring drivers more expensive with added costs like health care and sick days, further impeding cash flows as DoorDash aims to become profitable.

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