The Mercury News

Delivery startup DoorDash to seek up to $2.8B in IPO

- By Crystal Tse, Ellen Huet and Katie Roof

DoorDash, the biggest U.S. food delivery company, is seeking to raise as much as $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 $75 to $85 each. At the top end of this range, the company could be valued at about $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 about $16 billion in June. The company’s IPO price range could still change depending on demand for its stock on its roadshow with investors over the next week.

DoorDash is currently planning to hold the IPO on Dec. 8, with its trading debut on the New York Stock Exchange the following day, said a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified because it wasn’t public.

A representa­tive for DoorDash declined to comment on that timing.

DoorDash is part of a cadre of consumer-oriented, web-based companies led by home-rental platform Airbnb Inc. that have lined up IPOs for December.

T he g roup includes video-game company Roblox Corp., installmen­t loans provider Affirm Holdings and ContextLog­ic, the parent of online discount retailer Wish.

DoorDash has seized on the pandemic- fueled 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 filed 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 $1.9 billion in sales, more than triple the $587 million during the same period last year.

Its net loss narrowed to $149 million, compared with $533 million for the period in 2019.

DoorDash was brief ly profitable in the second quarter of this year — at the height of the stay-athome orders in major U.S. cities — posting $23 million in profit.

After the listing, cofounder and Chief Executive Officer Tony Xu will hold almost 42% of DoorDash’s Class B super-voting shares, which have 20 votes each. He also has voting control over the rest of the 20-vote shares, which are split between his cofounders, Stanley Tang and Andy Fang. They will control about 79% of the voting power, according to the filing.

SoftBank Group’s Vision Fund will be the largest outside investor, with 25% of the Class A shares. Venture capital firm Sequoia will own more than 20% and Singapore’s GIC Pte will own 10.5%, according to its filings. That will add up to less than 16% of the voting power because of the Class B shares held by the founders.

DoorDash’s listing plans — along with the entire app-based service industry — got a boost in November, when California voters approved a ballot measure setting aside a state law requiring gig-economy companies to treat their drivers more like employees than contractor­s.

Despite that victory, the company indicated in its filing that it could face further regulation or litigation that would affect its ability to keep its workers as less costly independen­t contractor­s.

DoorDash’s offering is being led by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co., with Barclays Plc, Deutsche Bank, RBC Capital Markets and UBS Group. DoorDash is planning to list its shares under the symbol DASH.

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