DoorDash Lands Hefty Softbank Investment, Plans Major Expansion

July 23, 2024         By: Steven Anderson

Recently, we spotted DoorDash’s latest move to help make IHOP a delivery operation, and rejoiced at the thought of getting pancakes without having to get out of our pajamas. Yet our joy at breakfast almost in bed was tempered by the knowledge that not many IHOPs would behave in such a fashion, mostly because partner DoorDash—which handled the delivery side—wasn’t available in that many places. A new investment from SoftBank, meanwhile, just ramped up the total, and now we have a much better chance of being a “DoorDash city”.

The SoftBank investment, $535 million which brings DoorDash’s valuation to $1.4 billion total, is sufficient to allow DoorDash to target around 600 new cities by the end of the year. The investment required DoorDash to accept a couple new board members, including SoftBank’s own Jeffrey Housenbold, but in the process opened up a lot of new potential opportunity for DoorDash.

The expansion comes at a good time for DoorDash; firms from Grubhub to Uber to even Amazon and beyond are getting in on the action. DoorDash’s expansion will help it stay more visible in the market and give it the opportunity to establish its own user base ahead of the others that may come on board. Moreover, DoorDash has also been expanding out from restaurants; it’s recently been spotted working with Walmart to give the grocery and general merchandise chain delivery options as well.

The combination of more cities and more delivery points will likely prove helpful for DoorDash going forward, not to mention for those of us who want food delivery from more places, yet can’t get access to drone aircraft that will bring it out for us. In fact, it suggests a potential dichotomy at stake; services like DoorDash can connect urbanites to food delivery, while ruralites can get it via drone. It actually addresses all the major problem points at once; drone delivery has safety issues, but ruralites often have plenty of land—front yards, back yards, fields—that serve as perfect drop-off points for drones.

A little common sense, and a hefty dollop of investment, and soon, we may well never need to leave our houses again thanks to mobile payments and some infrastructure modifications.