An online food delivery (OFD) platform is a website or mobile app that allows users to place food orders, make payments, and track delivery orders in real time. The earliest and most popular model in the industry is the aggregator model, in which the platform hosts menus from multiple restaurants for users to order from. Newer players in the industry have focused on niche segments such as prepared meals and meal kits. Already a growing segment, online food delivery gained immense traction recently due to restaurant closures and social distancing practices to mitigate the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Online food delivery experienced significant growth due to restrictions on dine-in restaurants:
Customer transactions at restaurants declined sharply during the height of the pandemic, -37% YoY in April 2020 amid lockdown restrictions and dine-in closure mandates, but which subsequently improved to 32% YoY in March 2021. Meanwhile, digital orders through third-party food delivery apps grew by 207% YoY for the year ended March 2021. Consequently, many online food delivery platforms reported accelerated growth in revenue in FY2020 and FY2021:
Marley Spoon – +126% YoY in the US (FY2020); +17.5% YoY in the US (FY2021)
HelloFresh – +107% YoY in the US (FY2020); +59% YoY in the US (FY2021)
Delivery Hero – +95% YoY globally (FY2020); +89% YoY globally (FY2021)
DoorDash – +226% YoY globally (FY2020); +69% YoY globally (FY2021)
Deliveroo – +57.5% globally (FY2020); +57% YoY globally (FY2021)
Major online food delivery platforms took initiative to help restaurants:
DoorDash and UberEats waived fees charged to restaurants at the onset of the pandemic. DoorDash announced a five-year USD 200 million Main Street Strong Pledge in November 2020 to continue supporting restaurants and drivers; offered a further USD 10 million in cold weather grants to struggling restaurants in October 2020; partnered with the California Restaurant Association (CRA) in August 2021, to support small businesses in the area.
Uber Eats launched an in-app donation button for restaurants in April 2020 and proposed an additional USD 2 million to the Restaurant Employee Relief Fund; launched the Eat Local program in February 2021, committing USD 20 million to continue supporting restaurant owners and operators.
GrubHub collaborated with the Restaurant Strong Fund in November 2020 to offer independent restaurants grants to help with outdoor dining during the winter. They offered independent restaurants 1) USD 2 million in grants in May 2021, to help reopen restaurants under Covid-19 requirements and 2) USD 4 million in grants in October 2021, to support restaurants that were operational during the pandemic.
State and local governments capped online food delivery commissions:
As a relief measure for restaurants, several US cities, such as Washington D.C., New York, San Francisco, and Jersey City, implemented a temporary cap on commissions charged by online food delivery platforms. Rate caps ranged from 20% (New Jersey) to 10% (Oregon), with most cities setting rate caps at 15% (New York, San Francisco). While these commission caps have since been lifted in some states and cities (such as Washington, Denver, and Chicago), following a lifting of restrictions on indoor dining, a few cities (New York, San Francisco, Minneapolis) have passed legislation to make these commission caps permanent.
The aggregator (general) segment is highly populated compared to the other niche segments, mostly due to its large potential market size. The segment is the popular pick for incumbents, which are mostly established tech players with an existing e-commerce presence. More established/mature disruptors are also largely present in the aggregator (general) segment, as well as in meal kit delivery.
The larger disruptors in the general aggregator segment - including DoorDash, Deliveroo, and Delivery Hero – are in growth stage, and have regularly raised capital from the equity and equity-linked issuance markets over the last two years. The general aggregator segment also has some newer startups in the pre-seed/seed stage using alternative business models (e.g., commission-free) or operating in niche sectors (e.g. high-end restaurants) to try to compete with larger incumbents and disruptors.
The majority of startups in the seed or pre-seed stages tend to be clustered in the meal kit delivery and prepared meal delivery segments, with these two segments also seeing more early stage start-ups.
As of July 2021, Doordash was the most dominant player in the space with a 57% share of the US online food delivery aggregator market, ahead of global leader UberEats (23%) and legacy US market leader Grubhub (16%). The company, which hadn’t reached 50-state penetration until 2019, took over as market leader from Grubhub that year, and has since further eroded Grubhub’s market share (from 40% in August 2018). However, market share is fragmented across US major cities. DoorDash, for example, is dominant in its home market San Francisco, as well as in Houston and Washington, while UberEats leads in Miami and gained significant market share in Los Angeles through its acquisition of disruptor Postmates in 2020. New York is pretty evenly split among the three players, in terms of share of sales.
In the more niche meal kit segment, German company HelloFresh is the largest player in the US, with an estimated market share of almost 60% as at September 2020. The company’s market share growth in the US has mainly come at the expense of rival Blue Apron, whose US market share has declined significantly (from over 20% in January 2019 to roughly 9% by July 2020), amid diminishing customer loyalty.
Subasket is the highest funded disruptor in the prepared meals segment. The company, which began operations as a meal kit provider, expanded into prepared meals in August 2020 followed by the launch of its full-service food delivery model in January 2021.
Ordermark (more than USD 150 million) and Deliverect (~USD 87 million) are the highest funded disruptors. Both companies operate online ordering platforms for restaurants and have surpassed the USD 1 billion order value mark.
DoorDash operates an online food delivery platform, connecting restaurants with customers, across the US, Australia, Canada and Japan. As of February 2022, the company was the market leader in the US among OFD players, with an estimated 58% market share. Its US operations span over 4,000 cities, with more than 400,000 restaurant partners servicing over 18 million customers, as of April 2021. DoorDash is one of the first startups (along with Postmates) to offer a delivery facility through an aggregator platform, which competitor GrubHub only started in 2015. The company has also expanded into grocery and convenience store delivery over the last 2-3 years, with a hybrid business model consisting of a mix of supermarket partnerships and its own network of dark stores. As of June 2022, the company operated in 27 countries including the US, Canada, Japan, Germany, Australia, Israel, and New Zealand as well as countries in the Nordics, Baltics, Eastern and Central Europe, and the Caucasus.
In contrast to competitor UberEats - which has expanded aggressively through a series of acquisitions - DoorDash has predominantly grown organically, with the support of a few strategic acquisitions. DoorDash’s most recent acquisition was in March 2022, when it entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Bbot, a contactless ordering and payment solution provider. The purchase allowed the company to expand its in-store operations product suite for merchants, including in-store digital ordering and payments. Previously, the company acquired Chowbotics, the developer of a stationary salad-making robot, “Sally,” in February 2021, with the acquisition expected to expand the menu offerings of partnered restaurants and provide greater “access to fresh and safe meals." In August 2019, the company bought rival online food delivery platform Caviar for USD 410 million. The acquisition strengthened Doordash’s market share in Pennsylvania and Oregon, where Caviar had more than 10% market share.
In June 2022, DoordDash completed its acquisition of Wolt, a Finland-based online food delivery platform. The acquisition expanded DoorDash’s global presence from four countries to 27. The deal was closed at a value close to USD 3.5 billion, although it was initially valued at USD 8.1 billion when announced in November 2021. This is a result of DoorDash's share price falling by more than 55% since November. DoorDash issued over 46 million shares to Wolt shareholders in the transaction. Wolt CEO Miki Kuusi was to head the company's operations outside the US, including Wolt’s 23 markets as well as Australia, Canada, and Japan. In less than two weeks following the acquisition, Wolt launched its new subscription service Wolt+ in Prague and scaled its operations in Israel by launching operations in Israel’s northern region.
Prior to the pandemic, DoorDash charged restaurants a commission of up to 30% of order value, and a service or delivery fee from customers, depending on the type of service (takeout or delivery). However, during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, third-party delivery platforms were criticized for their heavy commission fees, with several cities across the US imposing a temporary 15% delivery commission cap to support restaurants, given their higher dependency on third party food delivery providers. In response, DoorDash introduced a new three tiered commission structure for US restaurants (with less than 75 locations) in April 2021, ranging between 15%-30% delivery commission (+6% pickup commission), with limits on 1) delivery area; 2) app visibility; and 3) access to high-value DashPass customers, for the lower commission range. Under the new commission structure, consumers bear a higher share of delivery costs. Consumers who subscribe (USD 9.99 per month) to DashPass, however, are eligible for zero delivery fees on orders over USD 12.00. The company classifies DashPass subscribers as “high-value”, likely due to their frequency of ordering food delivery. In April 2022, the company launched “DashPass for Students,” a discounted subscription plan for college students. The new program builds on its existing DashPass (launched in 2018), allowing DoorDash to make its services more accessible to students across the US.
DoorDash, along with competitors Grubhub and UberEats, filed a lawsuit against New York City in September 2021, to block new legislation that caps delivery commissions charged by third-party apps at 15%. The company previously teamed up with Grubhub to sue the city of San Francisco in July 2021 following the enactment of a permanent commission cap.
DoorDash also operates other business models such as 1) DoorDash Self-Delivery: a platform that allows restaurants and food businesses to have a listing on the DoorDash platform, while using their own delivery people and setting their own delivery zone and fees (lower commission vs. restaurants that use DoorDash’s drivers); and 2) DoorDash Drive (Drive): a white-label product, which allows participating restaurants to offer delivery through their own apps or websites (instead of the DoorDash app) with delivery being carried out by DoorDash drivers. Drive restaurant partners including Chipotle, Denny’s, Wingstop, and Little Caesars, as well as online ordering solution Orda (March 2022). In February 2022, DoorDash launched DoorDash Capital in partnership with Parafin, a financial services technology company, to provide revenue-based financing to eligible restaurants and DoorDash merchants. It would support investments in growth including purchasing equipment, hiring, marketing costs, rent, and payroll. That same month, DoorDash Storefront (launched in 2020) integrated with Google to offer commission-free online orders to restaurant partners in the US. Additionally, in March 2022, the company conducted a beta launch of its new feature “Return a Package,” allowing customers to return packages to the closest post office, UPS, or FedEx location. In March 2021 Doordash partnered with Missouri-based family-owned supermarket retailer Schnuck Markets to deliver prepared meals from five store locations in St. Louis, Missouri, to addresses within a six-mile radius of the stores. In July 2022 the two companies expanded the partnership to include 25 locations across Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana.
For Q2 2022, DoorDash reported revenue growth of 30% to USD 1.6 billion. Adjusted EBITDA for the period was USD 103 million. Although this was a 10% reduction compared to the EBITDA in Q2 2021 the company has exceeded the adjusted EBITDA guidance of between USD 0 to USD 100 million. The company expects its marketplace GOV for FY 2022 to be in the range of USD 51.0 billion to USD 53.0 billion and the adjusted EBITDA for FY 2022 to be between USD 200 million to USD 500 million. In the 12 months ending June, the company has added over 80,000 new merchants to its DoorDash marketplace.
Aggregators (General):
Aggregators (Specialized):
Meal Kit Delivery Platform:
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