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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

delivery

McDonald’s Adds DoorDash as Delivery Partner, Ends Uber Eats Exclusivity Deal

In what’s a bad news Uber Eats but a major win for DoorDash, McDonald’s announced today it has partnered with the latter to expand delivery in the U.S. This officially puts an end to McDonald’s exclusive partnership with Uber Eats, which the quick-service mega-chain had in place since 2017.

According to a press release, McDonald’s and DoorDash will launch the partnership with a pilot at more than 200 locations in the Houston, TX area. That’s slated to kick off on July 29. For those using DashPass, DoorDash’s monthly subscription service, McDonald’s will waive the delivery fee for orders of $12 or more.

It’s a surprising twist, said no one ever. The Uber Eats-McDonald’s exclusive deal technically ended in April of this year, just before Uber IPO’d. While that deal made delivery possible at about 64 percent of McDonald’s locations in the U.S., it seemed like only a matter of time before McDonald’s pulled the plug on the exclusivity factor in order to widen its ability to deliver to new markets. (The exclusive partnership was also a point of friction with some of the chain’s franchise operators.)

As a partner, DoorDash is a no-brainer, since the delivery service operates in all 50 U.S. states and, as I seem to be writing ad infinitum these days, is aggressively going after every suburban market in America.

Chris Kempczinski, President of McDonald’s USA, indicated as much in a statement in the press announcement: “Building on the success of McDelivery in the US, we’re excited to make McDelivery accessible to customers on DoorDash, which is available in all 50 states and reaches 80% of Americans, making it even more convenient for our customers to enjoy their favorite McDonald’s menu items on their terms.”

On the restaurant-tech front, two parties have integrated their systems so that DoorDash orders go directly to the McDonald’s POS system, speeding up the order process and (hopefully) making life easier for franchisees and employees working with the platform.

One area the press release didn’t mention but that’s worth keeping an eye on when it comes to McDonald’s news: artificial intelligence. McDonald’s acquired Dynamic Yield earlier this year, and has since implemented its AI tech in drive thrus, with plans to expand that program to kiosks. And not long ago, word got out that McDonald’s has actually been testing deep-frying robots to automated beverage equipment. It’s probably only a matter of time before AI makes its way to delivery, and something like a McDonald’s-DoorDash-Dynamic Yield delivery platform that can improve recommendations and personalize menus for customers doesn’t seem out of the realm of possibility.

Just Eat Acquires UK Corporate Catering Marketplace City Pantry

London-based digital food delivery and takeout marketplace Just Eat announced today it has acquired B2B catering marketplace City Pantry, also based in London, for an initial cash consideration of £16 million (~ $18 million USD).

According to a Just Eat press release, the initial cash consideration was paid using existing resources, and further cash consideration could be payable if “certain operational and financial criteria” are met over the next three years.

City Pantry’s digital marketplace connects chefs and restaurants to corporate offices to provide food delivery to employees. Its services include not just food for events or large team meetings but also a regular meal planning tool, where offices can order breakfast and lunch regularly and ahead of time. All orders are done online and delivered to offices at scheduled times, whether that’s on the same day or, in the case of big events, even months after the order has been placed.

City Pantry currently serves companies like Eventbrite, Amazon, WeWork, and Slack, among others. To date, the company had raised £5.1 million (~$6.4 million USD).

Just Eat is Old Guard when it comes to third-party restaurant food delivery services, having started in Denmark in 2001 and expanded its marketplace across Europe as well as Mexico, New Zealand, Canada, and Brazil.

The company of late has been on a buying spree, acquiring Flyt this past January and Practi in April. In both cases, technology was at the center of the deal. Practi’s software lets Just Eat incorporate a full management platform — front and back of house — into restaurants it works with who don’t already have such technology in place. For those that do, Flyt provides the tools to integrate existing systems with Just Eat’s.

The City Pantry acquisition will help Just Eat strengthen its presence in the corporate catering sector in both the UK and internationally.

How the Uber Eats ‘Dine-In’ Feature Could Affect Restaurant Operations

Uber Eats now wants to streamline more than just your food delivery order. The company made an addition this week when it announced it will also speed up your experience when you eat in the actual restaurant, too.

A tipster dropped a line to TechCrunch detailing the new Uber Eats Dine-In feature, which lets customers order their food ahead, so there’s very little wait from the time a person enters the restaurant to when they get their meal.

To use the feature, customers log into the Uber Eats app and choose the “dine-in” option. The app shows how long the food will take to prepare and notifies you when it’s nearly ready, which is your cue to head over to the restaurant and take a seat. Users can leave a tip for the server in the app. For this feature, Uber Eats also waives the usual delivery and service fees.

Image: Jenn Marston/The Spoon

The whole process is very much like Allset, a competitor that also offers a streamlined process for dining in-house.

Beyond how Uber Eats’ entrance into this area might affect Allset’s business, the move also raises questions about how an uptick in these sorts of apps could affect restaurant operations. Within Uber Eats’ Dine-In option, users are shown how long the food will take to prepare (see screenshots above). It’s unclear if that time calculation factors in how busy the kitchen is at the moment or, for that matter, if the restaurant has the seating to accommodate the order. The app seems like an ideal way for a person to speed up a lunch in the middle of the workday or a pre-movie dinner. But those are both times restaurants tend to get heavy traffic anyway, so it remains to be seen if adding another sales channel to the mix will make restaurants’ lives easier or more hectic.

One area Uber Dine-In could provide a boost is for off-peak times. As TC pointed out, restaurants could use the Dine-In feature to attract more customers during less busy times by running promotions through the app itself or by subsidizing an Uber ride to the restaurant. In theory, at least, these kinds of promotions could provide a small revenue boost for a restaurant.

Restaurant operations aside, apps like Dine-In and Allset do raise the question of why you would go out to eat in the first place if you don’t have the time or patience to wait 11 minutes for your food to arrive after ordering. There does seem to be something about these features that would make, say, a pre-movie meal feel more like just-another-transaction rather than an evening out with friends or family. That’s in the eye of the beholder, of course, and as we see more apps like these coming to market, we’ll hear plenty more pros and cons from both side of that argument.

Report: Consumers are Loving Plant-based Food Delivery — Especially the Impossible Burger

Last week delivery service Grubhub released its “State of the Plate” report, which detailed popular food trends from the past year.

According to the report, in the U.S., Grubhub’s overall orders of vegan-friendly foods increased by 25 percent in the first half of 2019 compared to the same period the year before. Anyone who follows dining trends knows that consumers are demanding more plant-based options in grocery stores and restaurants. Apparently that demand extends into delivery, as well.

One vegan-friendly food in particular seems to be a Grubhub darling: The Impossible Burger. Grubhub reports that orders for the “bleeding” plant-based meat rose 82 percent in 2019. The Midwest in particular saw a huge uptick in orders (326 percent). Grubhub also noted that the Impossible burger was a popular late-night choice this year, with orders up 529 percent over the same time period last year.

We should take Grubhub’s report with a few hefty grains of salt, though. Since Grubhub conducted the survey, it doesn’t take into account how Impossible and other plant-based foods are doing via Doordash, Uber Eats, etc. However, Grubhub was the #1 delivery service in the country for the vast majority the timeframe covered by the report (Doordash took the title in May).

It’s also important to note that one of the reasons Grubhub is delivering more Impossible burgers this year is simply because the meatless burgers are more widely available. Since May 2018 Impossible has steadily growing, quickly forging partnerships with national chains like Burger King, White Castle, Umami Burger, and Red Robin. All of which could explain the insane 529 percent jump for the meatless burger.

I was particularly interested to see that Impossible was such a popular choice for late-night food delivery. At least for me, when ordering late-night food I typically go for something more indulgent, perhaps even something known for its alcohol soaking-up properties. It seems that, for a growing number of consumers, Impossible qualifies. That’s good news for the Redwood City, CA-based startup, which is trying to appeal to flexitarians and show them that plant-based meat can be just as juicy and delicious as meat from a cow.

One curious thing in the Grubhub report is the complete omission Beyond Meat. Grubhub only mentions the Impossible burger when outlining vegan-friendly options. However, Grubhub delivers from a wide range of restaurants that serve both Beyond burgers and Impossible burgers.

Likely the choice was simply because Beyond’s delivery sales didn’t increase in such eye-popping numbers as Impossible. After all, Impossible had a more dramatic uptick in restaurant partners over the past year. Beyond also gets about 50 percent of its revenue from grocery sales — unlike Impossible, which is just in foodservice for now — meaning it has to split its focus between restaurants and retail.

Despite its shortcomings, Grubhub’s report clearly shows that more and more people are looking to order plant-based food for delivery. As a growing number of companies wake up to this trend and put plant-based meat, milk, and eggs on their menus, customers will have even more options — and Impossible will have even more competition.

Keep up with consumer trends for plant-based dining and subscribe to Future Food, our weekly newsletter offering stories and analysis on the alternate protein landscape.

Now the Top Food Delivery Service, DoorDash Stands Behind Its Controversial Pay Structure

While Grubhub made a lot of headlines this week as the poster child for controversial restaurant fees, DoorDash was all over the news for its controversial stance on how it pays its drivers.

Once considered the underdog of third-party delivery, DoorDash has spent the last year or so doubling down on its expansion efforts. The service became the first of the top four (which includes Grubhub, Uber Eats, and Postmates) to be available in all 50 U.S. states, and it’s seemingly made its way into every nook and cranny of suburban America through high-profile partnerships with major chain restaurants like The Cheesecake Factory, Chipotle, and the ubiquitous Chili’s. It’s also raised lots and lots (and lots) of funding.

So far those expansion efforts are paying off. In the last week, news surfaced that DoorDash now holds the number one spot in terms of marketshare for third-party food delivery services, unseating longtime leader Grubhub. Currently, DoorDash is valued at $12.6 billion, which is almost double the $6.5 billion market cap of the publicly traded Grubhub.

The growth isn’t without controversy, however, because in addition doubling down on its expansion plans, DoorDash has also, it seems, continued its controversial pay structure for drivers that many feel is unethical. TechCrunch reminded us of that point yesterday when it called out a blog post by DoorDash CEO Tony Xu that was meant highlight DoorDash’s commitment to “transparency” but really just wound up highlighting the fact that despite its $12 billion-plus valuation, the company seems to be barely paying its drivers.

“With our current pay model, Dashers see a guaranteed minimum — including tips — prior to accepting a delivery,” Xu wrote in the post.

For every delivery the DoorDash driver (also called a “Dasher”) takes, they are guaranteed a minimum pay amount. (Dashers see this number before they ever accept or decline a job.) Unlike a serving job in a brick-and-mortar restaurant, that guaranteed minimum pay isn’t derived from any kind of hourly wage. Rather, DoorDash pays a $1 base fee then uses the tip from that order to count towards that minimum guarantee. If tips plus that $1 aren’t enough, DoorDash makes up for the rest:

Image via DoorDash.

Where this becomes really problematic is when drivers (which the company calls Dashers) get an especially large tip that winds up not being a tip, but instead subsidizing the minimum guarantee:

Image via DoorDash.

It’s the same pay structure that made waves a few months ago for services like Instacart and Amazon Flex. Instacart wound up changing its structure and apologizing to workers. Amazon stood firmly by its policy, and it seems DoorDash has as well. If Xu’s blog post is anything to go by, it seems that rather than backpedal on its controversial model, DoorDash is just taking further steps to make sure the pay structure breakdown is 100 percent apparent — to Dashers, at least. One small step for transparency, one giant leap backwards for the ethics of the gig economy. Or as labor rights group Working Washington said in a statement to TC, “Talking about transparency is good. And admitting you pay $1/job is better than denying it. But $1 is still $1.”

So what do we do about it?

The easiest solution would be for more customers to just skip the “tip” option in the DoorDash interface and tip in cash. That’s unlikely, given how integrated digital tipping is in both our apps and our lives at this point. Plus, consumers shouldn’t have to go searching through FAQ pages to find out exactly where their tip money goes during a transaction. If DoorDash really wants to tout transparency as one of its priorities and values, it should be making clearer to its customers, within the digital transaction process, where their money goes. Leading someone to believe they’re paying a gratuity when they’re really just subsidizing a base pay is just flat-out deceptive, and it’s the sort of thing that could erode customer trust over time.

Including customer relationships in those transparency goals should definitely be a priority for DoorDash. But at the end of the day, giving Dashers a fair wage rests on the shoulders of the company itself, not its paying customers. Some, like Working Washington’s Pay Up Campaign, want a minimum pay wage for workers of $15/hour plus expenses. That’s a larger conversation that’s making its way around many parts of the gig economy right now, and it’s one we’ll likely hear more debate around in the coming months.

Even if DoorDash doesn’t adopt that policy, you’d think a company valued at over $12 billion could find some kind of middle ground between $15 minimum wage and $1 to pay its workers, and to do that without roping unknowing customers into the process. Perhaps amid plans to tackle the whole of suburbia, DoorDash should tackle how to treat the people building that empire more fairly.

Nez Scores £2M for its Discounted Lunch Discovery App Targeting Office Workers

Today nez, a London, U.K.-based app that helps users find food and drink deals, announced that it had raised £2 million (~$2.54 million) in funding from investors including Martin Robinson, the chairman of Burger King U.K. (tip via tech.eu). This brings the company’s total amount of funding to £3 million (~$3.8 million)

Founded in 2016, nez is an app that features real-time deals to local restaurants, bars and cafes that are no more than a 15 minute walk away from the users’ current location. Specifically, it targets busy office workers who want to spice up their daily lunch routine beyond the same old ham-and-cheese sandwich.

On its website, nez describes itself as “the chalkboard for the digital age.” But while a sidewalk chalkboard proclaiming discount burritos can only draw in people who happen to stroll by, nez can actively push out deals out to all nearby app users and attract more restaurant footfall.

It also offers a companion app for foodservice partners (separate from nez’s consumer-facing one) to help them track purchases and get customer feedback, and has a service called nez perks, which lets employers give workers virtual “credits” which translate into discounts at local bars and restaurants. Users also earn points whenever they redeem a nez deal, which can accrue to help them get bigger discounts at their favorite spots.

Recently there has also been a new crop of companies trying to connect office workers with cheaper, better lunch options. Mealpal offers discounted lunch subscription options for pickup at local restaurants. Peach is similar, but lets users get their discounted lunch options delivered to the office. Perhaps most akin to nez, Feedback and Gebni let restaurants offer dynamic menu pricing (though only the latter has delivery).

Nez is smart to target the office lunch crowd. It’s easy to fall into a rut with picking up the same old chicken salad day after day from the place around the corner once noon hits. By offering a discovery aspect, nez can satisfy diners’ hunger for new lunch options nearby and also help food establishments — especially smaller, under-the-radar ones — attract new customers and incentivize them to keep coming back. One challenge is that nez doesn’t seem to offer any sort of delivery, so they’re counting on workers taking the time to get up and pick up their lunch, which might eliminate some busier or lazier diners.

According to tech.eu, nex claims to have 150,000 users who have redeemed 385,000 food and drink deals through the service. It currently works in eight London neighborhoods.

Report: IKEA Is Testing Food Delivery in Paris

Occasionally, I’ll head to the edge of Brooklyn and wander through the DIY furniture maze at IKEA just eat lunch at their cafeteria. It’s inconvenient to get to (there are no subways, so you have to pony up for an Uber) and always crowded, but the good food makes the trip worth all the extra hassle.

But at some point in the (probably not) near future, myself and others could have the ability to get IKEA’s version of comfort food delivered straight to our doors. Today IKEA confirmed to Fast Company that it is testing out a food delivery business, not, sadly, in Brooklyn, but in Paris, France.

Spanish publication El Confidencial first got ahold of news that the company was considering an expansion of its food business into homes. According to the Fast Company article, the Paris delivery trial includes IKEA’s so-called Swedish foods, including beets, salmon, cabbage, and salads. Food will be delivered from IKEA’s city center location in Paris.

What’s unclear is if the food will be delivered hot and ready to eat or if it will be a part of IKEA’s frozen food product line, much of which can be delivered just like any other IKEA product. In fact, details about the delivery service are scant all-around. An IKEA spokesperson told Fast Company, “We do not have any further details to share at this point, as we are very early in the process.”

So no, scooters won’t be trolling about the streets of Paris delivering hot plates of Swedish meatball to your doorstep. Not yet, anyway.

This isn’t IKEA’s first foray into same-day food delivery. There’s the aforementioned frozen product line, which you can order like you would a piece of furniture from the company’s website. And at the end of 2018, the company partnered with Uber in the U.K. to deliver for a limited time Swedish meatballs in celebration of an end-of-the-workweek Swedish tradition called Fredagsmys (“cozy Friday”).

IKEA’s food-focused initiatives in general make it clear that the company wants to become more than just a giant blue box of a store that sells DIY furniture. IKEA announced a vegan version of its iconic meatball last month, which it will be trialing in early 2020. The company also has a number of goals in place around reducing food waste, including its Food is Precious initiative, which aims to cut waste in the company’s food operations by 50 percent by the end of the fiscal year 2020.

Supporting all that is IKEA’s ongoing accelerator program, which has had a number of food-related companies participate, in addition to startups doing retail innovation and those trying to create more sustainable containers like coffee cups.

Whether any of these food-related initiatives will tie into a food-delivery business remains to be seen. How the Paris pilot fares should tell us more, and Fast Company reported that if it’s successful IKEA may expand the program to Spain as well as other parts of Europe. That’s a long way off from Brooklyn, but occasionally I can be optimistic, so here’s hoping.

The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf Partners With Postmates for Delivery

Today, The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf announced and kicked off an exclusive delivery partnership with Postmates at 180 company-owned Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf locations across California and Arizona. According to a press announcement, additional locations around the U.S. are planned “in the coming weeks.”

Delivery fees on orders start at $1.99. For customers of Postmates Unlimited, the company’s subscription service, the delivery fee is waived on orders over $15.

Southern California-based Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf joins a growing list of coffee retailers now delivering, usually via third-party services.

Starbucks already operates a delivery program via Uber Eats in certain U.S. markets. If you prefer the McCafe brand for your early-morning coffee needs, McDonald’s will deliver one through Uber Eats (though it recently bailed on its exclusivity contract with the service). Dunkin’, meanwhile, has been testing delivery since 2015.

Coffee has always been a bit of a tricky delivery item, largely because it’s historically been a hot, highly spill-able beverage. As one writer noted back in 2016, “Time and temperature seem to be the two biggest obstacles [to delivery] in repeating the experiences consumers have come to expect within the brick-and-mortar retail locations.”

Those were the days when ordering coffee for delivery meant getting a tepid drink wrapped three times over in cellophane. But times are changing. More and more tech around delivery operations and logistics has entered the restaurant industry over the last few years, as have business models like ghost kitchens, which typically only service delivery and could therefore speed up order fulfillment times. Starbucks, in fact, just announced it is testing ghost kitchens in China that could improve quality and timeliness on orders.

Plus, according to the National Coffee Association’s latest report, so-called non-traditional beverages like blended drinks, cold brew, and nitro coffee are on the rise, thanks to a higher demand for personalization and specialization from younger customers. Many (though not all) of these beverages are better suited to car trips than the old-fashioned cup of joe.

As drinks like these become more popular, and as technology gets cheaper and easier for restaurants to implement and the industry continues to innovate on packaging, tepid coffee in a paper cup could soon become a thing of the past.

Sweetgreen Makes First-Ever Acquisition With Purchase of Meal-Delivery Company Galley Foods

Fast-casual salad chain Sweetgreen announced today is has acquired meal-delivery service Galley Foods (via Food Dive). This is Sweetgreen’s first-ever acquisition. The deal was for an undisclosed amount of stock and cash.

Galley Foods is a Washington, D.C.-based service that emphasizes fresh food and clean ingredients for the heat-and-serve meals it delivers to customers. That message is in line with Sweetgreen’s business, also based out of D.C., which places huge emphasis on local sourcing, whole foods, and other elements of health and sustainability.

Galley also brings to the table what Sweetgreen CEO Jonathan Neman called “unparalleled insight into delivery” in a recent press release. The acquisition gives Sweetgreen access to Galley’s logistics technology as well as its abilities around live courier operations. According to the press release, Galley’s CEO, Alan Clifford, will become Sweetgreen’s VP of Logistics. Galley Foods will continue to operate in the D.C. area, while Clifford and his team will join the Sweetgreen team.

Sweetgreen has been one of those companies at the forefront of the off-premises movement in the food industry (which is one of the reasons the company landed on our Food Tech 25 list this year). Besides offering delivery through its own website and app as well as through third parties such as Grubhub and Postmates, the chain also maintains its delivery-catering hybrid service called Outpost, where customers can retrieve food they’ve ordered online at pickup stations during lunchtime. WeWork, Nike, and Headspace are just some of the companies offering these stations to workers.

With the Galley Foods acquisition, Sweetgreen might well be looking for ways to have more control over its off-premises options. Outpost already requires customers to order via Sweetgreen’s system, rather than through a third-party app. Purchasing a company like Galley Foods suggests the same might eventually be true for Sweetgreen’s delivery orders. It’s no secret that restaurants have their share of troubles with third-party services: there’s little control over branding or customer service, and the fees restaurants pay per order can impact often thin margins. A company that notably tried third-party delivery then backed out of it is Olive Garden, who said its customers weren’t satisfied wit the service. Might Sweetgreen be next on the list to reign delivery back beneath its own roof?

DoorDash Inks Exclusive Delivery Deal With Chili’s

DoorDash’s breakneck expansion across the U.S. continues this week, with the the third-party delivery service announcing an exclusive deal with casual dining chain Chili’s.

According to a press release sent via email, the partnership takes effect immediately at over 1,000 participating Chili’s restaurants in the U.S.

Chili’s, who is something of a poster child for the fast-casual American dining scene, has been vetting third-party delivery services for some time. At the end of April, the company said it was looking for a delivery partner that could adequately cover the suburban markets, where Chili’s has a substantial presence. In that light, DoorDash seems the obvious pick, as it currently holds 30 percent of the market share in sales and is the only third-party delivery company currently operating in all 50 U.S. states (as well as in 50 Canadian cities).

But DoorDash’s ability to integrate with Chili’s existing POS system might have been the real determining factor. Chili’s, along with its parent company, Brinker Internatoinal, has been skeptical about third-party delivery services overall. Brinker CEO Wyman Roberts said back in January that his company was “. . . cautious on business model implications and significant fees, but more importantly, the impact it has on our systems isn’t great.” In the same interview, Roberts added that, “From a technology standpoint, given that so many of these third parties are really priding themselves on being experts, we’re challenging them to integrate better.”

Integrating DoorDash directly into the restaurant chain’s POS system means all DoorDash orders are sent directly to Chili’s, without a server needing to manually input the information. As well, a direct integration means it’s easier and faster for Chili’s to onboard more of its locations onto this new delivery program.

This ability to integrate almost seamlessly into existing restaurant systems may be key for third-party services in future as they rush to gain and retain customers. All of the top services — Grubhub, Uber Eats, and Postmates along with DoorDash — offer POS integration capabilities. The question at this point appears to be more around who can offer it at the best price point for restaurants, and do so without introducing a lot of disruption to day-to-day operations. Might operational efficiency be yet-another area in which DoorDash can stand out?

DoorDash raised another $600 million in funding this past May, bringing the company’s total funding to $2 billion. This came on the heels of a $400 million Series F round raised in February of 2019. DoorDash has also said that since that Series F round, its business has grown 60 percent. Pair those numbers with the company’s continued and aggressive push across North America, as well as high-profile restaurant partnerships like the Chili’s deal, and there’s reason to suspect the company could be well on its way to nabbing the top spot in the market for third-party delivery.

Uber Now Offers Eats Functionality From Its Main App

Uber is making its Uber Eats service available from the main ride-share app in certain markets, with the hopes that cross-promoting its services could improve customer acquisition and retention for the company. TechCrunch reports that a web view version of Uber Eats is now embedded into the company’s ride-share app, which means users hailing a ride can order food without having to download and/or open the Uber Eats app separately.

Uber is currently testing this version in markets that don’t offer bikes or scooters. The company made the version available to iOS users in April, and as TC reports, it’s now rolling the functionality out to Android users, too. By clicking on the Uber Eats button placed in the top-right corner of the main app, users can automatically access Uber Eats functionality and order a meal while en route to their destination.

The hope is that offering this kind of seamless relationship between the two services will increase users for both Eats and the ride-sharing app. If it works, the integration could give Uber Eats an edge when it comes to keeping customers within the brand’s ecosystem. Not long ago, tech company Second Measure released data that indicates customer loyalty to any single brand in the third-party delivery space is declining, partly because of the number of options now available. By cross-promoting its services, Uber would potentially be able to persuade those who have never used Eats to try the service without forcing them to download yet-another app. And as Uber’s S-1 filing from April suggests, more Uber Eats customers can help boost overall usage for the company, whose stocks are currently down 5 percent from when it debuted on the NYSE in April.

And if the rumors are true, a forthcoming $9.99/month loyalty program, which a blogger discovered last month via hidden code within the Uber Eats app, could further boost the company’s lagging loyalty numbers. Said program has yet to be confirmed by the company, but if it does officially launch, it’s yet-more incentive for users to stay in the Uber world.

O-M-Series G! DoorDash Raises Another $600 Million

Maybe DoorDash should change its name to MoreCash, because the food delivery company announced today that it has raised another $600 million in funding. This brings the total amount raised by DoorDash to $2 billion.

This Series G round brought in new investors Darsana Capital Partners and Sands Capital, which joined existing investors Coatue Management, Dragoneer, DST Global, Sequoia Capital, Softbank Vision Fund, and Temasek Capital Management. With the new money, DoorDash is now valued at $12.6 billion.

Today’s new funding comes just months after the company raised $400 million in February, which followed a $250 million round in September of last year.

In its corporate blog post announcement, DoorDash said its business has grown 60 percent since that Series F round in Feb., and that year over year, the company grew 280 percent, generating $7.5 billion in gross merchandise value sales (not all of that went to DoorDash as it includes the money that also went to restaurants).

All this growth is one of the reasons my colleague, Jenn Marston, pegged DoorDash as the food delivery company to watch, writing:

Part of those rising sales numbers are no doubt due to DoorDash’s aggressive push across the country. The service is the only third-party delivery service right now to be in all 50 U.S. states, in case you couldn’t tell from the endless numbers of promotions and partnerships the company does with everyone from Canter’s Deli in LA to Taco Bell to the Wyndham Hotels chain. The service is also now in 50 Canadian cities.

DoorDash’s big raise also comes at an interesting time, to say the least, in the food delivery market. Uber’s IPO was a dud despite the strong growth of Uber Eats, taking a bit of the shine off gig economy companies. A more direct comparison would be Postmates, which has also filed to go public. The outcome of that IPO could be more consequential for the future of DoorDash.

In addition to rival food delivery companies, DoorDash faces internal issues as well. It’s been under fire for allegedly pocketing workers tips, and was the target of a boycott for those practices.

More money, more problems.