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DoorDash raises $535M, now valued at $1.4B

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Re: DoorDash raises $535M, now valued at $1.4B

#12
I really hope they use some of this money to better screen dashers and improve customer support.

We used to order lunch on Doordash once a week till things got so bad that we decided never to use Doordash again. Orders would regularly have missing or incorrect items. Some dashers would leave the food in the lobby, text me, and leave. Delivery was hardly ever on time and there was no way to get in touch with a human on customer care except through some unlisted numbers. We've switched to Caviar(https://www.trycaviar.com) since and have no complaints.

Re: DoorDash raises $535M, now valued at $1.4B

#13
post #3

"Xu said the company became “contribution margin positive” in the last year, which means that it’s profitable on a per-order basis. In fact, DoorDash has become profitable in its earliest markets." Its funny this is a milestone for a company at this stage. Congrats you aren't losing money on every order!

Creative accounting at its finest. Company is either GAAP profitable, pro-forma profitable, EBITDA profitable, cashflow profitable, cashflow neutral or money losing. All other metrics are creative accounting that put lipstick on a pig masking money losing status. DoorDash is money losing.

Which is amusing given they don't have to pay the actual labor to deliver goods or make food. Are they set up in the valley paying mega wages perhaps?

Re: DoorDash raises $535M, now valued at $1.4B

#14
post #6

Food delivery has officially become a very frothy market. Is GrubHub/Seamless actually vulnerable? They seemed to be the 800 lb gorilla of the market. And based on my observation, the competition seems to be private labelled delivery service.

Just my personal experience but Grubhub has kind of declined a bit while DoorDash has become more useful. The most popular restaurant in my town has appeared to partner with DoorDash -- I can no longer order from them through doordash but if I do it through their restaurant website I get a delivery with a receipt from DoorDash. I can't order it anywhere else. So maybe you're right about the private delivery service.

Re: DoorDash raises $535M, now valued at $1.4B

#15
I swore not to use doordash anymore after a few bad experiences even if after placing a complain for each occurence I got $10 off the next order (resetting the fee and the tip.) Beside some of their fees are high. Mind you, I would still use them if the service was great. From incomplete orders to bad CS to cold food on arrival to even missing the basics of delivering location, I can't believe this is getting popular.

Re: DoorDash raises $535M, now valued at $1.4B

#16
post #3

"Xu said the company became “contribution margin positive” in the last year, which means that it’s profitable on a per-order basis. In fact, DoorDash has become profitable in its earliest markets." Its funny this is a milestone for a company at this stage. Congrats you aren't losing money on every order!

>> became “contribution margin positive” in the last year, which means that it’s profitable on a per-order basis.

>Congrats you aren't losing money on every order!

Seems like an overstatement as fixed costs are still not covered when they are "contribution marigin positve".

Re: DoorDash raises $535M, now valued at $1.4B

#17

Wow that's a lot of dilution for a late stage round. I feel bad for the employees that suddenly have their equity cut by 60%. If I'm doing my math right, ($865 MM pre-money) then it means even with the higher valuation preferred price goes down

Most likely earlier share holders sold their stakes, so not much dilution. Perhaps founders took money off the table too. In these cases, there is not much dilution because new shares are not issued (but not much capitalization either).

Re: DoorDash raises $535M, now valued at $1.4B

#20

Wow that's a lot of dilution for a late stage round. I feel bad for the employees that suddenly have their equity cut by 60%. If I'm doing my math right, ($865 MM pre-money) then it means even with the higher valuation preferred price goes down

Correct me if I'm wrong, but couldn't the preferred price stay flat, even with dilution? The company issues new shares and sells them at e.g. the current preferred price. Now there are more outstanding shares, and a higher post-money valuation, but a close to flat pre-money valuation. In this case the preferred price in real percentage of the company terms is higher since there are now more shares outstanding, but the price per share is flat.

I imagine the 409a (common stock price went down), but I don't think you can infer from this that the preferred price went down. The missing figure is how many shares were issued.

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