Looking to Join Uber and Grubhub on the Market, DoorDash Files to Go Public

The third-party delivery service reported $1.9 billion in revenue so far this year, but is still losing money

DoorDash is looking to join competitors Uber and Grubhub as a publicly traded company, officially filing its IPO with the SEC today. DoorDash would offer multiple classes of stock, including one that comes with 20 votes per share, so that co-founder Tony Xu “will be able to determine or significantly influence any action requiring the approval of our stockholders.” CNBC reports that DoorDash has had $1.9 billion in revenue from January through September this year, and reported a net loss to $149 million over those same months, which is a smaller loss than the same time last year.

DoorDash is the United States’s biggest delivery service, with 49 percent of the meal delivery sales in September, compared to Uber’s 22 percent and Grubhub’s 20 percent. The industry as a whole is booming thanks to the pandemic, but DoorDash, like Uber, has yet to turn a profit. And while the company and its competitors spent $218 million to get California voters to say yes to Prop 22, which allows gig economy companies to not provide their drivers and deliverers with employee benefits, restaurants and diners alike are becoming more vocal about the ways these companies mistreat their workers and the restaurants they do (or don’t) partner with.

And in other news...

• Eat more weeds. [Today]
• Utz buys salsa and chip maker On The Border, allowing it to expand into the tortilla chip world. [Fooddive]
• We know you’ve been begging Santa for [checks notes] customizable Dunkin’ bedding? [NRN]
• The Trump administration is freezing minimum wages of H-2A workers, a.k.a seasonal farm workers, and the new rule “will also allow $170 million in projected wages to be transferred each year from workers to employer.” [Modern Farmer]
• Food distributor Sysco is no longer requiring a minimum order from restaurants, in order to help smaller restaurants stay afloat. [CNBC]
• A survey from a market research firm says a quarter of Americans have now at least tried plant-based meat. [The Beet]
• The U.S. remains insistent on closing schools while keeping indoor dining open, which is probably a bad idea. [NYTimes]
• Chipotle made a “cuffing season” menu, which is very eye roll inducing. [BI]
• Mark Cuban tried to get people to “put Americans in need over politics” by encouraging them to donate to food banks over the Georgia senate runoff, and was reminded by John Legend and plenty others that the Senate creates policy that could also help Americans in need. Also you can donate to both. [Twitter]

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