Want to know how to buy Doordash stock? Great, you’re in the right place!
The 2020 calendar year will long be remembered in the eyes of many stock traders as the year of the coronavirus pandemic.
With more than one million people across the globe already dead from the deadly virus and tens of millions infected, we can only hope that next year will be better thanks to a trio of promising coronavirus vaccines.
While the pandemic has significantly altered our lives and weighed on economies, it has not prevented a lot of U.S. companies from going ahead with their initial public offerings (IPOs).
Some high-profile names have made their Wall Street debut this year: ZoomInfo (NASDAQ: ZI), Unity (NYSE: U), Snowflake (NYSE: SNOW), and Palantir (NYSE: PLTR).
DoorDash Inc is also expected to join the list of familiar companies that have hit the public markets in the pandemic-darkened year. The food delivery startup is soon set to go public in one of the year’s most hotly anticipated initial public offerings.
If you are not already talking about the DoorDash IPO, you soon will be.
Read on for the details of the offering though, there are some changes coming.
What is DoorDash
DoorDash is a food delivery service that operates in the United States, Australia, and Canada.
The company was founded in 2013 by Stanford University students Andy Fang, Stanley Tang, Evan Moore, and Tony Xu. Xu owns 4.6% of the company while Fang and Tang each own 4.2%.
Moore’s stake has not been listed on DoorDash IPO filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Since the San Francisco, California-based company was founded, it has grown remarkably and claims to be working with 390,000 merchants and serving over 18 million consumers.
The drivers that work for the company are called “Dashers”. You will find people of all backgrounds working for DoorDash.
DoorDash allows the drivers to decide exactly how many hours they would like to work delivering food from restaurants to customers. Therefore, it is possible for a person to work with this company for just a few hours on the weekends while having a normal 9 to 5 job during the week.
In some places, it is also possible to work for DoorDash even without a motorcycle or a car – a bike will do just fine.
The company also allows drivers as young as 18 years old to make food deliveries using its app, while in the case of most of its rivals, drivers have to be at least 21 years old.
DoorDash app is available for phones with both iOS and Android. The company charges a delivery fee to the customer of a few dollars and a commission to restaurants that can reach 30% of an order.
According to its IPO paperwork, the company posted its first quarterly profit this year after recording a surge in revenue growth.
Its order volume increased to $16.5 billion through the first nine months of 2020, from $5.5 billion in the same period last year.
Achievements
There are plenty of reasons for Wall Street to be confident in DoorDash.
Since coronavirus lockdown orders were issued across the United States in mid-March, sales of the popular food delivery app have swelled putting it well ahead of competitors such as Uber Eats and such Grubhub.
DoorDash trounced the competition as the pandemic forced restaurant, cafes and dining rooms to shut down.
As of mid-October, its U.S. market share was up 48% compare to 35% at the beginning of the year, according to a report from Edison Trends that analyzed over 1 million restaurant food-delivery–app orders during that time period.
The report shows that Uber Eats’ share of the market dropped 4% during the same period to 35% from 39%. That percentage included sales from Postmates, a smaller competitor that was recently acquired by Uber (NYSE: UBER).
DoorDash is backed by SoftBank Vision Fund, sovereign wealth fund Government of Singapore Investment Corp and venture capital firm Sequoia.
More Notable Accomplishments
- 2013- In its first year of operation, DoorDash received $2.4 million in funding and expanded to 70 restaurants in the Bay Area. According to Y Combinator, the company grew at a rate of 20% every week.
- 2015- DoorDash teamed up with Taco Bell to start a delivery service in more than 90 cities and more than 200 restaurants around Dallas, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.
- 2019- After failed merger attempts with Uber, DoorDash acquired Caviar, the food delivery subsidiary of Square (NYSE: SQ) in a $410 million deal. Even though Caviar is still available to use, DoorDash has routed all of the engineers and systems over to its own platform.
Also, the company unveiled a shared kitchen in 2019, which operates similar to dark kitchens that Uber Eats and Deliveroo use in European nations.
- 2020- DoorDash was responsible for 45% of all food delivery orders made in 2020. Commanding a double digit advantage over its rivals.
The company announced on Feb. 27 that it had filed for an IPO, setting it up to be one of the most anticipated listings of the year.
How to Buy DoorDash Stock
DoorDash stock is something traders would love to have in their portfolio. While some people are angling to buy the stock as part of the IPO, most will not get even a tiny piece of the company before its debut.
However, the stock will be available to the general investing public once the company lists on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “DASH” on Wednesday, Dec. 9. Goldman is the lead underwriter for the offering.
According to its regulatory filing dated Dec. 8, DoorDash said it plans to sell 33 million shares at a new price of $102 per share. The company had previously planned to offer the shares at a price range of between $90 to $95 per share.
With the new price, DoorDash would raise at least $3.36 billion and have a valuation of up to $32.5 billion, roughly double its private valuation of $16 billion in June.
As soon as DoorDash lists its shares, those looking to own the stock will use the following process:
- Register with an online broker account
- Choose a favorite online broker option
- Input your Social Security Number (SSN) to activate the account (for Americans)
- Start trading.
Acquisition of DoorDash as a pre-IPO stock can occur through the following three ways:
- Purchase of DoorDash stock in the Initial Public Trading (IPO)
The best way to lay your hands on DoorDash shares in the IPO is by harnessing the power of the fintech revolution. A few years ago, it was almost impossible for individual investors to access public offerings before shares became available on stock markets.
Nowadays, it is possible for traders to gain access to certain ground-floor investment opportunities. For example, TradeStation allows its clients to access IPO investing through the mobile-first ClickIPO app by simply linking it to their existing TradeStation brokerage account.
- Purchase of DoorDash stock after it starts trading
You can always buy shares of DoorDash on the stock market after the company officially goes public. Once the shares begin trading on the NYSE, you can open an account with a commission-free broker and buy the stock. Consider opening a brokerage account today so you are ready as soon as the stock hits the market.
- Purchase of DoorDash stock in Pre-IPO secondary marketplaces
The market in secondary trading in stocks of hot startups has made a huge comeback after the debacle that preceded Facebook (NASDAQ: FB)’s IPO in 2012, when shares of the social media giant were traded at wildly varying prices and with little oversight.
Websites such as EquityZen and Sharespost now offer investors, founders, and early employees a way to liquidate their shares pre-IPO. This way, you can join the platforms and buy DoorDash shares as soon as they are available to trade.
Bottom Line
DoorDash is poised to be one of the hottest IPO of 2020, and the food delivery service has many people wanting to ride the stock to riches. The company has no doubt benefitted from trends in consumer behavior in a challenging year dominated by coronavirus.
Its market debut is expected to be yet another test of investor appetite for Silicon Valley startups after the likes of ride-hailing companies Uber and Lyft (NASDAQ: LYFT) struggled when they went public last year.
In addition to DoorDash, startups preparing to debut include video game company Roblox and home-sharing service Airbnb.