Delivery service Postmates has confidentially filed for an initial public offering (IPO). Bloomberg broke the news this morning, followed by an announcement from the company.
Postmates is the first of the major national delivery services to test the public market, beating out rivals like Instacart and DoorDash. All three services have individually raised hundreds of millions of dollars in venture funding: Instacart raised $1.9 billion, DoorDash raised $972 million, and Postmates raised $678 million.
Postmates just snagged $100 million last month, which valued the company at $1.85 billion. The startup will be a bellwether for the rest of the industry: if it pops, then that will clear a path for Instacart and DoorDash to do the same. If it tanks, well… that will make going public that much harder for other food delivery giants.
While we work to remain objective here at The Spoon, we can’t help but be a little excited for a potentially successful Postmates IPO for one reason: it will mean more robots.