Doordash seeks up to US$2.8 billion in its IPO

Doordash Inc., the biggest U.S. food delivery company, is seeking to raise as much as US$2.8 billion in an initial public offering that's part of an end-of-year U.S. listings rush.

The San Francisco-based company said in a filing Monday that it plans to sell 33 million shares for US$75 to US$85 each. At the top end of this range, the company could be valued at about US$32 billion, taking into account the outstanding shares listed in its filing, as well as employee stock options and restricted stock units.

This valuation is an increase from when private investors valued Doordash at around US$16 billion in June.

Its IPO price is not finalized and could still change depending on demand for its stock on its roadshow with investors over the next week. Doordash joins a cadre of consumer-oriented, web-based companies led by home-rental platform Airbnb Inc. that have lined up IPOS for December.

The group includes video-game company Roblox Corp., instalment loans provider Affirm Holdings Inc. and Contextlogic Inc., the parent of online discount retailer Wish Inc.

Doordash has seized on the pandemic-fuelled boom in demand for meals brought to your door, as well as investor exuberance over new stock listings as it moves ahead with its IPO. When the company revealed its prospectus earlier this month, it revealed a sharp jump in revenue this year and more surprisingly, a profitable quarter.

For the first nine months of the year, Doordash had US$1.9 billion in sales, more than triple the US$587 million during the same period last year. Its net loss narrowed to US$149 million, compared with US$533 million for the period in 2019. Doordash was briefly profitable in the second quarter of this year — at the height of the stay-at-home orders in major U.S. cities — posting US$23 million in profit.