Postmates files for IPO

Postmates Inc., an on-demand food delivery service, confidentially filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for an initial public offering (IPO). Postmates is currently valued at $1.85 billion by Pitchbook after completing a $100 million Series F financing with Blackrock (NYSE: BLK), G Squared and Tiger Global Management.

Previous investors in Postmates include Spark Capital, Founders Fund, Uncork Capital and Slow Ventures.

According to Bloomberg, Postmates has selected JP Morgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) and Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC) to serve as its lead underwriters.

Postmates customers use its app service to locate and order food for home delivery. Its urban logistics platform connects customers with local couriers who can deliver any product from a store or restaurant. Businesses are also able to connect with consumers by partnering with Postmates.

“Postmates is transforming the way food and merchandise is moved around cities – by connecting the best of a city to our customers, while helping local brick and mortar compete against retail goliaths,” said the company.

Bloomberg said that Postmates is the most popular food delivery service in Los Angeles with a market share of 42.6 percent, nearly twice as big as GrubHub’s (NYSE: GRUB) market share of 24 percent. Postmates says it has 240,000 couriers and can reach 70 percent of U.S. households.

The company is now active in over 550 cities and completes five million monthly deliveries according to TechCrunch. Postmates is expected to announce that it generated $400 million in revenue in 2018 from food sales of $1.2 billion according to Recode.

Postmates joins a number of delivery companies pursuing IPOs in 2019. The Wall Street Journal reported that Uber’s food delivery service, UberEats, will be valued at $20 billion.

Postmates is led by co-founder and chief executive officer Bastian Lehmann.