DoorDash is pricing shares at $102 in its initial public offering, which is well above the $90 to $95 range it previously estimated.

In terms of fully diluted shares, that values the company at roughly $39 billion. The third-party delivery provider was privately valued at $16 billion in June and $1.4 billion in 2018. DoorDash originally aimed to sell 33 million shares at $75 to $85 shares each, but those expectations were raised to $90 to $95 last week. The company settled at $102 per share to raise $3.37 billion.

The rise in share pricing exemplifies the growth of the third-party delivery market in the past couple of years, which accelerated during the COVID pandemic. In 2019, DoorDash earned $133 million, $215 million, and $239 million in three quarters. This year, revenue lifted to $362 million, $675 million, and $879 million. Additionally, DoorDash swung a net income of $23 million in Q2 compared to a net loss of $190 million in 2019, and then posted a net loss of $43 million in Q3 compared to a net loss of $152 million last year.

DoorDash currently has more than 18 million customers, 390,000 merchants, and 1 million delivery drivers. More than five million subscribe on a monthly basis to its DashPass service, which offers free delivery. According to Second Measure, DoorDash owned 50 percent of the third-party delivery market in October. Uber Eats was second with 23 percent, followed by Grubhub with 18 percent and Postmates with 7 percent.

The company’s shares will begin trading Wednesday on the New York Stock Exchange under the “DASH” symbol.

CEO Tony Xu said that while DoorDash began by facilitating food delivery, its ultimate goal is to “build products that transform the way local merchants do business and enrich the communities in which they operate.” To that end, the service plans to build an on-demand logistics platform that can facilitate the local delivery of any item, merchant services to grow sales in the modern era, and a membership program to the physical world for consumers.

“If we can make possible the delivery of ice cream before it melts, or pizza before it gets cold, or groceries in an hour, we can make the on-demand delivery of anything within a city a reality,” Xu said in the IPO. “ … And, while food itself is a category that has a long runway for growth, we believe the network we have built ideally positions us to fulfill our vision of empowering all local businesses to compete in the convenience economy.”

Finance, Story