Grocery Delivery Company Dingdong Pegs IPO Valuation At $6B

Chinese grocer Dingdong is setting its sights on getting a $6 billion valuation when it goes public in the U.S. The company, which is backed by Japan’s SoftBank Vision Fund II, delivers groceries mainly in such big Chinese cities as Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen and Hangzhou.

Reuters reported that the valuation would mean a jump of over 20 percent from the $5.1 billion the company was worth when SoftBank invested in it just last month.

The unicorn startup plans to raise up to $357 million alone in an initial public offering (IPO) of stock. Other investors include Tiger Global Management and Sequoia Capital. Competitors include such behemoths as Alibaba Group and Pinduoduo.

The Shanghai-based Dingdong was co-founded in 2017 by Onno Faber, Leonard van Driel and Jorn van Dijk. The startup, which offers an app, has raised a total of $1.3 billion. Its reported income last year was $1.7 billion, almost three times more than in 2019.

Dingdong is aiming to list on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol DDL It will join other Asian startups looking to go public in the U.S., including Chinese grocery delivery startup MissFresh, which filed to go public in the U.S. MissFresh and Dingdong are aiming to be the first digital grocery platforms in the country to go public.

Headquartered in Beijing and launched in 2014 by Co-founders Bin Zeng and Zheng Xu, MissFresh is backed by Tencent and has raised a total of $1.7 billion in funding. The startup’s revenue in 2020 was nearly $1 billion, up 73 percent from 2018, according to The Wall Street Journal. MissFresh is planning to list on Nasdaq under the symbol MF, but the startup hasn’t yet disclosed the financing details. Sources told Bloomberg that MissFresh could raise anywhere from $500 million to $1 billion. The offering could happen as soon as this year.