DoorDash (DASH) — Company Research

Last Updated: 5 May 2026

DoorDash, Inc. (NASDAQ: DASH) is a global last-mile local-commerce platform built around three marketplaces — DoorDash (US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand), Wolt (Europe and the Middle East — acquired May 2022 for ~$8.1 bn) and Deliveroo (UK, Ireland, France, Belgium, Italy, UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Singapore, Hong Kong; acquired 2 October 2025 for ~$3.9 bn / £2.9 bn). The company operates in more than 40 countries, partners with over one million merchants, and exited 2025 with over 56 million monthly active users and over 35 million combined DashPass / Wolt+ / Deliveroo Plus members. FY2025 revenue: $13.717 bn (+27.9% YoY); GAAP net income $935 m (vs $123 m FY2024); Marketplace GOV grew 27% YoY (23% excluding Deliveroo). DoorDash will report Q1 2026 results tomorrow — Wednesday, 6 May 2026 after the close, with company guidance of $31.0–$31.8 bn Marketplace GOV and $675–$775 m adjusted EBITDA. The stock closed 1 May 2026 at $175.84, market cap ~$76.2 bn. Live prices are on live charts; upcoming events are on the economic calendar; community discussion is on the forum.

1. Company Snapshot

Company	DoorDash, Inc.
Ticker	NASDAQ: DASH (Nasdaq-100; S&P 500)
Sector / Industry	Consumer & Retail — Internet / Local Commerce / On-demand Delivery / Logistics Software
HQ	303 2nd Street, South Tower, San Francisco, California 94107, USA
CEO & Co-founder	Tony Xu (CEO since founding, 2013; co-founders: Stanley Tang, Andy Fang, Evan Moore)
CFO	Ravi Inukonda (CFO since May 2023)
Founded	2013 in Palo Alto (originally "Palo Alto Delivery"); rebranded DoorDash 2014
IPO	9 December 2020 (NYSE; listing later transferred to Nasdaq)
Employees	~22,200 (year-end 2024 10-K); +Wolt; +~10,000 Deliveroo headcount (acquired Oct 2025)
Fiscal year end	31 December
Share price (1 May 2026 close)	$175.84
52-week range	$143.30 (27 Mar 2026) – $285.50 (16 Oct 2025)
Shares outstanding	~435.75 m (Class A + Class B combined)
Market cap	~$76.2 bn (1 May 2026)
FY25 revenue	$13.717 bn (+27.9% YoY)
FY25 net income	$935 m (vs $123 m FY24)
FY25 Marketplace GOV	~$110 bn (+27% YoY; +23% ex-Deliveroo)
Q4 2025 revenue	$3.955 bn (+38% YoY); adj EBITDA $780 m
Monthly active users (year-end 2025)	>56 m
Subscription members (DashPass / Wolt+ / Deliveroo Plus)	>35 m
Q1 2026 results	Wednesday 6 May 2026 after close (call 4:30 p.m. ET)
Website	doordash.com | IR: ir.doordash.com

2. Bull Case vs Bear Case

Bull Case	Bear Case
Dominant US position: ~56% US food-delivery share (Earnest Analytics tracker, 2025) — the only platform with a coherent multi-vertical (restaurants + grocery + retail) and multi-geography roadmap. Q4 2025 US restaurants posted "highest YoY growth rate in more than three years" per management.	Q4 2025 results — Q1 2026 EBITDA guide of $675–$775 m sat materially below Street expectation (Deliveroo investments + ~$20 m severe-storm impact + higher Dasher cost-per-order). Stock fell from $285.50 (16 Oct 2025) to $143.30 (27 Mar 2026) — ~50% drawdown.
Operating leverage finally inflecting: FY25 net income $935 m vs $123 m FY24 (+660%); FY25 adjusted EBITDA on >$13 bn revenue — gross margin ticked up to ~51.8% (vs 50% trailing two-year average) on advertising mix and grocery & retail unit-economic improvement.	Heavy CEO and insider sell pattern: Tony Xu has filed 55 sells / 0 buys over the past five years per Form 4 records; 21 transactions in the past 18 months net of 1.69 m shares; direct holdings as of January 2026 reduced to ~1,500 Class A shares.
Deliveroo deal (closed 2 Oct 2025) extends footprint from ~30 to 40 countries; Q4 2025 Deliveroo contribution to adjusted EBITDA exceeded the $45 m guide; full-year 2026 expectation: ~$200 m of adj EBITDA from Deliveroo despite Q1 2026 reset to <$25 m as integration spend front-loads.	Wind-downs already announced post-deal: in March 2026 DoorDash exited Qatar & Singapore (Deliveroo markets) and Japan & Uzbekistan (Wolt markets) — suggesting deal-rationalisation costs continue and acquired exposure was lower-quality than headline mapping suggested.
Advertising lever: management has highlighted ad revenue as a high-margin lever; if ad take grows from sub-1% of GOV today toward 4–5%, the incremental flow-through to EBITDA is significant given marginal cost-of-revenue is near zero.	Autonomous delivery investment cycle: DoorDash unveiled its "Dot" delivery robot & Autonomous Delivery Platform in Oct 2025 (live in Tempe and Mesa, AZ); CEO Tony Xu told Fortune the path is "lots of pain and suffering" with commercial progress "first inning" — multi-year capex with execution risk.
Grocery & retail unit economics expected to turn positive in H2 2026 (management guidance, Q4 2025 call); if achieved, removes the structural overhang that has dogged the segment since 2022.	Trades at premium valuation: trailing P/E ~82.7x, forward ~32x, EV/EBITDA ~50.5x — little margin for execution slip vs the 50%+ stock drawdown already absorbed since the October 2025 high.

3. What Does This Company Actually Do?

DoorDash is a three-sided marketplace plus a logistics platform plus an emerging advertising and software business. The three sides are consumers (people ordering), merchants (restaurants, grocers, retailers, pharmacies, convenience) and Dashers (independent-contractor couriers). DoorDash takes a commission on each completed order, charges consumers delivery and service fees, sells subscriptions (DashPass, Wolt+, Deliveroo Plus — all tiered free-delivery membership programmes), and increasingly sells digital advertising to merchants who want preferred placement and targeting on the marketplace.

The product portfolio runs across four pillars:

1. DoorDash Marketplace — the original US/Canada/Australia/New Zealand restaurant-led marketplace; restaurants remain the largest single category by GOV but grocery, retail, alcohol and convenience are growing rapidly.
2. Wolt Marketplace — acquired May 2022 for ~$8.1 bn; operates across the Nordics, Germany, Israel, Japan (since wound down March 2026), Eastern Europe, Greece and Cyprus among others.
3. Deliveroo Marketplace — acquired October 2025 for ~$3.9 bn; the UK’s second-largest food-delivery platform with adjacent operations in Ireland, France, Belgium, Italy, UAE, Kuwait, Hong Kong and (until March 2026) Qatar/Singapore.
4. Commerce Platform & Drive — white-label "powered by DoorDash" delivery for merchants’ own apps and websites (e.g. McDonald’s on its own app), Storefront for merchant ordering pages, and DoorDash for Business (corporate meal programmes).

The dominant economic line is the Marketplace. Marketplace GOV (the gross dollar value of completed orders, including taxes, tips, consumer fees and subscription fees) is the headline operating metric that Wall Street tracks. Revenue is roughly the take-rate (commissions + fees + subscriptions + ads) on top of GOV, and is currently around 12% of GOV at the corporate level.

4. The Business Model

DoorDash earns money along several layers of each transaction:

1. Restaurant / merchant commission — typically 15–30% of order subtotal (varies by tier and market). The merchant’s commission funds Dasher pay, payment processing, support, marketing and platform overhead.
2. Consumer delivery and service fees — charged on every order; DashPass / Wolt+ / Deliveroo Plus subscribers waive most of these.
3. Subscription revenue — >35 m members across the three subscription products at year-end 2025; recurring, high-margin ARPU.
4. Advertising and merchant software — fastest-growing high-margin layer; merchants buy sponsored placements, banner ads, audience targeting; ads are the single biggest margin lever in the long-term model.
5. Commerce Platform / white-label fees — large enterprise deals with chains using DoorDash logistics on the merchant’s own front-end; revenue per order, no consumer subscription overlay.

Unit economics: DoorDash discloses gross margin and adjusted EBITDA at the consolidated level, plus a non-GAAP "Contribution Profit" metric that strips out fixed-cost overhead to expose order-level profitability. Q4 2025 adjusted EBITDA was $780 m on $3.96 bn revenue (margin ~19.7%); adj EBITDA as % of GOV was 2.6% (vs 2.7% Q4 2024 and 3.0% Q3 2025). Cost-of-revenue (Dasher payments, payment processing, insurance, support) was ~6.7% of Marketplace GOV in Q3 2025 — the lowest comparable disclosure.

Moat: network density. In US food delivery, DoorDash has the widest restaurant selection, the most Dashers in most metros, and the highest order density — meaning shorter pickup-to-delivery times, lower per-order Dasher cost, and better service quality. Density compounds: the platform with shorter ETAs gets more consumer orders, which attracts more merchants, which attracts more Dashers. The numerical expression of this moat is share: ~56% US food-delivery share according to Earnest Analytics (vs Uber Eats 23%, Grubhub 16%; some city-level trackers show closer races).

Subsidy / regulatory dependency: none material. DoorDash does not receive government subsidies, tax credits, or regulatory credits as a structural part of its profit. The largest regulatory exposures are cost drivers in the opposite direction — minimum-wage and worker-classification rules in New York City, Seattle, the EU’s Platform Workers Directive (effective late 2026), California’s Prop 22 framework, and various state minimum-pay rules for delivery couriers.

5. Financial Health

Metric (FY)	2025	2024	2023	2022	2021
Revenue ($ bn)	13.72	10.72	8.64	6.58	4.89
Net income ($ m)	935	123	(558)	(1,365)	(468)
Diluted EPS	2.13	0.27	(1.42)	(3.68)	(1.39)
Marketplace GOV ($ bn)	~110	~80	~67	~53	~42
Cash & investments ($ bn)	~5.51	~5.18	~4.40	~3.91	~4.04
Total debt ($ bn)	~3.29	~0.35	~0.33	~0.41	~0.30
Net cash ($ bn)	~2.22	~4.83	~4.07	~3.50	~3.74

Quarterly trend (most recent four):

Quarter	Revenue ($ bn)	Marketplace GOV ($ bn)	Adj EBITDA ($ m)	Gross margin
Q4 2025	3.955	29.7	780	~51.8%
Q3 2025	3.446	~27.0	754	~50.0%
Q2 2025	3.279	~25.0	~700	~51.5%
Q1 2025	2.964	~22.7	~590	~50.0%

Balance sheet: at year-end 2025 DoorDash held ~$5.51 bn cash and short-term investments and ~$3.29 bn debt (the step-up reflects financing for the Deliveroo acquisition that closed 2 Oct 2025). Net cash ~$2.22 bn / ~$5.09 per share. The company has not historically paid a dividend; capital return has been via opportunistic buybacks and small tactical M&A.

6. Valuation & Market Data

Raw market data as of 1 May 2026 close (last reported):

Metric	Value	As of
Share price	$175.84	1 May 2026 close
52-week high	$285.50	16 Oct 2025
52-week low	$143.30	27 Mar 2026
Market capitalisation	~$76.23 bn	1 May 2026
Enterprise value	~$74.42 bn	1 May 2026
Shares outstanding	~435.75 m	most recent reported
Diluted EPS (TTM)	$2.13	FY2025
P/E (trailing)	~82.7x	TTM through FY2025
P/E (forward)	~32.2x	consensus next-12-month
EV / EBITDA	~50.6x	most recent reported
EV / FCF	~34.2x	most recent reported
P/S (TTM)	~5.5x	FY25 revenue $13.72 bn
Dividend	None	n/a
Short interest	12.13 m shares (~2.78% of float)	most recent reported
Net cash position	~$2.22 bn (~$5.09/share)	year-end 2025

7. What Are They Building / What’s Coming?

• Deliveroo integration — closed 2 Oct 2025; Q4 2025 contribution >$45 m adj EBITDA; FY2026 expectation ~$200 m, with Q1 2026 reset below $25 m as integration spend is front-loaded. The DoorDash, Wolt and Deliveroo marketplaces are being moved onto a common technology stack.
• Autonomous Delivery Platform — "Dot" robot (Oct 2025): live in Tempe and Mesa, Arizona; designed to navigate doorways/driveways and optimise routes. CEO Tony Xu publicly framed the path as "lots of pain and suffering" but said commercial progress is at the "first inning". Self-driving fleet expansion is in the multi-year capex pipeline.
• SmartScale (announced Oct 2025) — restaurant kitchen-side hardware to weigh and validate orders; aimed at order-quality improvements (the largest single source of customer complaints).
• AI merchant tools (May 2026) — new tools for merchants to speed up onboarding, edit dish photos, generate menu copy and launch branded websites; rolled out 4 May 2026 (per TechCrunch coverage).
• DashPass × Lyft expansion to Canada (April 2026) — first international DashPass member benefit on rideshare; signals subscription "beyond delivery" expansion.
• Advertising — ramp toward 4–5% of GOV is the long-term lever cited by the company; sub-1% today.
• Grocery & retail unit economics — management has guided that they should turn positive in H2 2026.
• International rationalisation — March 2026 announcements: wind-down of operations in Qatar & Singapore (Deliveroo markets) and Japan & Uzbekistan (Wolt markets) as the integrated portfolio is pruned.

8. Competitive Landscape

The US online food-delivery market exited 2025 at >$50 bn (US) and ~$1.4 tn globally. DoorDash leads the US market by a wide margin; the global picture is more fragmented with regional leaders in Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

Company	US food-delivery share	Geographic focus	Notes
DoorDash (DASH)	~56%	US, Canada, ANZ + Wolt EMEA + Deliveroo (post Oct 2025)	Three-marketplace local-commerce platform; ~$110 bn FY25 GOV; 56 m MAU; 35 m subscribers
Uber Eats (UBER)	~23%	US + ~70 countries; bundled with Uber rides and Uber One	Cross-platform Uber One subscription; aggressive grocery push
Grubhub (Wonder)	~16%	US	Acquired by Wonder (Marc Lore) in 2025; share trending down for years
Instacart (CART)	n/a (grocery-led)	US grocery	Grocery-first; partnered with Uber Eats for restaurant delivery from Instacart app
Just Eat Takeaway (TKWY)	n/a	Europe, Canada, Australia	Sold Grubhub to Wonder; refocused on Europe/UK/DACH
Delivery Hero (DHER)	n/a	Asia, MENA, LatAm; foodpanda + others	Largest regional competitor in Asia/MENA outside DoorDash/Uber footprint

DoorDash’s comparative strengths are scale, density and balance-sheet flexibility; weaknesses are international fragmentation and the ongoing capex requirement to fund autonomous delivery and AI investment ahead of revenue.

9. Leadership and Ownership

Person	Role	Notes
Tony Xu	Co-founder, CEO & Chair	Co-founded DoorDash in 2013 (Stanford GSB); CEO since founding; founder-led
Stanley Tang	Co-founder; runs Labs / new initiatives	Long-tenured founding team member; key architect of marketplace expansion
Andy Fang	Co-founder & CTO	Tech leadership; AI / autonomous strategy
Ravi Inukonda	CFO since May 2023	Promoted internally; previously held finance leadership roles at DoorDash
Prabir Adarkar	President & COO	Former CFO; now runs operations
Will Dean	SVP, New Verticals (grocery/retail)	Drives the H2 2026 grocery&retail unit-economics target

Insider transactions (most recent — SEC Form 4 filings):

Insider	Date	Type	Shares / value	Plan / context
Tony Xu (CEO)	4 Mar 2026	Gift (entity)	83 Class A shares to TXX Investments LLC (family trust)	Bona fide gift; non-economic
Tony Xu (CEO)	5 Jan 2026	Option exercise + sell	16,667 shares; option strike $7.16; ~$4 m gross	10b5-1 plan disposal
Tony Xu (CEO)	Various 2025	Sells	21 transactions over trailing 18 months — net 1,689,822 sh sold	10b5-1 plan disposals

Aggregate over the past five years: Tony Xu has filed 55 sells and 0 open-market purchases, per stocktitan/QuiverQuant Form 4 aggregations. Direct holdings as of the 5 Jan 2026 filing: 1,500–1,583 Class A shares (~$300 k). A meaningful share of his economic stake is held via Class B (super-voting) shares and family trust vehicles, not Class A direct holdings — so the headline "1,500 shares" understates voting and economic interest.

Institutional ownership: >70% institutional. Largest holders typically include Vanguard (~9%), BlackRock (~7%), T. Rowe Price, Capital Group and SoftBank Vision Fund (legacy pre-IPO holding, partial sell-down through 2024–2025).

10. Risks and Challenges

• Worker classification & minimum-pay regulation — New York City and Seattle minimum-pay rules are live; California Prop 22 is in force but litigated; the EU’s Platform Work Directive transposes by member states through late 2026. Any forced reclassification of Dashers from independent contractor to employee in a major market materially raises unit cost and reduces flexibility.
• Q1 2026 EBITDA reset — company-issued $675–$775 m guide for Q1 2026 sat below sell-side expectation and is the proximate cause of the 50%+ drawdown from Oct 2025 high.
• Deliveroo integration risk — $3.9 bn deal closed Oct 2025; Q1 2026 contribution stepped down from >$45 m to <$25 m as integration spend front-loads; March 2026 Qatar/Singapore wind-downs already signal portfolio rationalisation.
• Autonomous delivery investment cycle — "Dot" robot live but at small scale; Tony Xu has publicly characterised the road as "pain and suffering"; multi-year capex with execution risk and uncertain payback.
• Competitive intensity — Uber Eats is the most capable cross-marketplace competitor (rideshare + delivery + Uber One subscription); city-level share races are tight (e.g. NYC: DoorDash 38.4% vs Uber Eats 38.2% per Earnest Analytics late 2024).
• Insider sale signal — CEO has filed 55 sells / 0 buys over five years and reduced direct Class A holdings to ~1,500 shares (Jan 2026). Class B and trust holdings remain meaningful but the cadence is worth flagging.
• Valuation headroom — trailing P/E ~82.7x; EV/EBITDA ~50.6x — little tolerance for execution slip vs the price already absorbed.
• Macro — consumer sensitivity to delivery and service fees in a slower-spending environment; weather impacts (Q1 2026 includes ~$20 m severe-storm hit per company guidance).
• Antitrust scrutiny — ongoing regulatory monitoring of platform commission rates (NYC, Seattle, several EU markets).

11. Recent Developments

Last 48 hours:

• 5 May 2026 — Earnings preview circulating ahead of tomorrow’s Q1 2026 print; sell-side largely focused on whether DoorDash can hit the upper end of $675–$775 m adj EBITDA range.
• 4 May 2026 — DoorDash announced new AI-powered tools for merchants — faster onboarding, AI dish-photo editing, automated branded-website generation and campaign automation (TechCrunch).
• 1 May 2026 — Stock closed at $175.84 (+4.26% intraday); 52-week range remains $143.30 (27 Mar) – $285.50 (16 Oct 2025).

Last 6 weeks:

• 30 Apr 2026 — Announced DashPass × Lyft Canada partnership (first international DashPass-on-rideshare benefit).
• April 2026 — TD Cowen initiated coverage of DoorDash with a positive view (the report referenced ad take-rate as a key lever); reported via 24/7 Wall St.
• 27 Mar 2026 — 52-week low of $143.30 reached — coincided with broader internet-platform tape weakness and Q4 2025 print absorption.
• March 2026 — Operations wind-down announced for Qatar and Singapore (Deliveroo) and Japan and Uzbekistan (Wolt) — portfolio rationalisation post-acquisition.
• 4 Mar 2026 — Tony Xu entity (TXX Investments LLC) filed Form 4 for an 83-share bona fide gift.
• 18 Feb 2026 — Q4 2025 / FY2025 results: revenue $3.96 bn (+38% YoY); FY revenue $13.72 bn; net income $935 m; Q4 adj EBITDA $780 m; Marketplace GOV +27% (Q4 +39%); MAU >56 m; subscribers >35 m. Q1 2026 guide: GOV $31.0–$31.8 bn; adj EBITDA $675–$775 m.
• 5 Jan 2026 — Tony Xu Form 4: option exercise (16,667 shares at $7.16 strike) and sell, ~$4 m.

Earlier in the cycle:

• 2 Oct 2025 — Closed $3.9 bn (~£2.9 bn) Deliveroo acquisition.
• 1 Oct 2025 — Tony Xu unveiled "Dot" autonomous delivery robot and the SmartScale order-quality device; "Dot" went live in Tempe and Mesa, Arizona.

12. Key Dates Coming Up

Date	Event
6 May 2026 (after close)	Q1 2026 earnings — conference call 4:30 p.m. ET
Q2 2026	Grocery & retail unit-economics expected to turn positive in H2 2026 (mgmt guide)
Q3 2026	Wolt / Deliveroo / DoorDash marketplaces moving onto common technology stack (in-flight)
Late July / Aug 2026	Q2 2026 earnings (typical cadence)
Late Oct / Early Nov 2026	Q3 2026 earnings (typical cadence)
H2 2026	Continued autonomous-delivery rollout (Dot robot expansion beyond Tempe/Mesa)
Late 2026	EU Platform Work Directive transposition deadline — affects Wolt and Deliveroo unit economics

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Disclaimer: This report is for information only. It is not investment advice and is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any security. All data is drawn from DoorDash company filings, earnings releases, conference call transcripts, SEC Form 4 filings, official press releases and DoorDash’s about.doordash.com newsroom. Forward-looking statements are attributed to DoorDash management. Always do your own research and consider your own circumstances before making any investment decision. Past performance is not indicative of future results.