In a pre-holiday announcement, DoorDash announced another round of investor cash bringing its total haul to more than $2 billion and the company’s valuation to an incredible $12.6 billion.
The San Francisco-based company, founded by CEO Tony Xu, announced the completion of a Series G round of $600 million. This latest round was lead by new investors Darsana Capital Partners of New York and also brought in Sands Capital as another new investor. The round also included DST Global, Temasek, Dragoneer, Sequoia, all of which participated in the $400 million Series F in February. SoftBank and Coatue Management were also on board.
The two most recent rounds account for $1 billion in funding, all this year. That’s a monumental sum, which is somewhat of a head scratcher for some industry watchers. The company hasn’t turned a profit; the revenue is a mystery to anyone on the outside, and two of its three biggest rivals are already public in an intensely competitive industry.
So why is it valued at more than twice the market cap of Grubhub, which hovers around $6.2 billion? Grubhub reports more deliveries and a slew of acquisitions as the company bought scale and valuable technology.
Afred Lin, a board member at Sequoia put it simply in an interview with Forbes. It’s not just that investors have to deploy capital and think the market is hot.
“Capital accrues to the winners in markets that people think are growing,” Lin told Forbes. “You don’t just get money because lots of money is in the system.”
And among the largest delivery platforms, DoorDash is the only one growing—at least according to recent data from various sources. A look at credit card transactions from analytics firm Second Measure showed DoorDash growing in transactions, almost an inverse relation with chief competitor Grubhub, which saw declining transactions. Edison Trends also found a similar pattern. Looking at transaction data, the firm announced that DoorDash had overtaken Grubhub in the constant delivery market share battle.
According to a blog post from DoorDash, its business has grown more than 60 percent since last year’s $400 million Series F, and it grew 280 percent year-over-year to an annualized gross merchandise volume. It’s also growing into new markets, recently topping 4,000 cities, including its 50th city in Canada. It’s also catching eyes with DoorDash Drive, a white-label fulfillment platform for goods beyond food that has integrated with grocery chain Wegmans and Walmart.
The company said this new capital would fuel its ongoing plans to enter new markets and expand on the core business with new modes like Drive and a recently announced partnership with hotel brands.
DoorDash was unable to comment on this story.
