Postmates on Thursday announced that it has filed confidentially for an initial public offering with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The company did not provide the size and price range for the proposed offering, which is expected to start after the completion of the SEC review process.
Because Postmates’ registration listing is confidential, it is not clear what the San Francisco-based company is eyeballing for a valuation. However, the company raised $100 million in a recent round of funding bringing its value to $1.85 billion, according to Crunchbase. The investment included participation from BlackRock, Glynn Capital and Tiger Global Management LLC, among others.
Postmates joined the on-demand delivery industry eight years ago, and currently offers its services in 2,940 cities located in Mexico and the U.S. It completes 5 million deliveries every month and reportedly expected to generate $400 million in revenue last year on $1.2 billion food sales.
Postmates is most popular in Los Angeles and has been significantly growing its delivery regions. Revenue grew more than 85% to roughly $250 million on about $900 million in total gross sales in 2017.
The company recently developed and unveiled an autonomous delivery rover known as Serve that is aimed at enhancing its fleet. Postmates Co-founder and CEO Bastian Lehmann commented, “We realized we are in a unique position to create an autonomous delivery vehicle with socially aware navigation that understands how to navigate cities while meeting specific customer needs.”
“We took a design-first approach with Serve that walks alongside people and fits into our communities. Ultimately, we believe that goods should move through cities at nearly zero cost to consumers,” Lehmann concluded.
The company unveiled its Postmates Unlimited $9.99 p/m subscription service in 2016, which allows subscribers to get free delivery on restaurant orders exceeding $15. The average Postmates Unlimited subscriber spends more than $3,000 per year on meal deliveries, according to Bloomberg.
Postmates competitors include DoorDash, Square’s Caviar delivery business, and Uber-owned Uber Eats. DoorDash, which is also based in San Francisco, raised about $1 billion last year that included a $535 million injection from SoftBank.
Postmates, also faces competition from Amazon and GrubHub. Nevertheless, the startup has tied up with big companies such as Starbucks, Chipotle Mexican Grill, and Walmart for delivery services. The company has reportedly picked Bank of America Corp. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. as its lead underwriters for the offering.
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