DoorDash delivers big in stock debut

DoorDash’s stock price nearly doubled in its first day of trading Wednesday as the food-delivery giant cashed in on a red-hot market for tech offerings.

The San Francisco-based startup’s shares opened on the New York Stock Exchange at $182 a pop and climbed as high as $195.50 — nearly 92 percent above the listing price of $102.

The opening price gave DoorDash a fully diluted valuation of more than $68 billion, more than four times the $16 billion price tag the company got in a private fundraising round in June. The shares, which trade under the ticker symbol “DASH,” were up about 77 percent at $180.31 as of 1:34 p.m., before ending the day up almost 86 percent at $189.51.

DoorDash’s market debut came at the end of a banner year for tech IPOs that has seen other Silicon Valley giants such as data-mining titan Palantir and cloud-storage startup Snowflake take their shares public.

DoorDash’s success is a good sign for Airbnb, which is set to start trading Thursday in a hotly anticipated IPO that could value the vacationrental giant at nearly $42 billion.

DoorDash and other food-delivery firms have seen their business boom during the coronavirus pandemic as demand for takeout surged among locked-down consumers. The company reported revenues of more than $1.9 billion for the first nine months of 2020, up from $587 million in the same period last year, and saw its net loss drop to $149 million from $533 million.

But DoorDash has also faced criticism for its steep fees, most recently from Washington, DC’s attorney general, who told the firm Tuesday to stop charging eateries a 30 percent commission.