Empire Building

Taco Bell’s Delivery Service May Be Looking at a $1 Billion IPO

Probably coming to a city near you.
Probably coming to a city near you.

It’s hard to keep track of everybody vying to fetch you dim sum or pepperoni pizza — Postmates will drop off Starbucks, Maple ferries over David Chang–approved eats, and Uber has a way to conjure food in a preposterous 10 minutes. Two-year-old DoorDash, meanwhile, is a service without much shtick that many people have never heard of, let alone used, but the startup’s growing insanely fast anyway — enough that it may already be worth a fortune. Insiders tell Bloomberg the company “is in talks to raise financing at a valuation of at least $1 billion.” (For perspective, GrubHub Seamless is valued at a little more than $2 billion.)

DoorDash actually hasn’t been a totally invisible player — news of an IPO with three-comma-club potential comes right on the heels of a nasty squabble with In-N-Out Burger, in which the fast-food chain sued DoorDash for allegedly delivering burgers without permission. DoorDash is, of course, also the go-to deliverer for Taco Bell and KFC, though being the unsung half of these partnerships doesn’t build a super-loyal following (or, more important, active website and app users). Right now, couriers do deliveries on the West and East Coasts, and a smattering of places in between, plus service just started last week in Toronto, its first city abroad. Assume it’s just the first taste of expansion, because the company said during the rollout that the goal has always been to “create a delivery network that expanded worldwide.”

[Bloomberg]

DoorDash Could Have a $1 Billion IPO