GrubHub, with some Philly roots, raises $192 million in IPO

Tom Paine

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GrubHub, the online food ordering service which merged with Seamless last year, has raised $192 million in an IPO. After trading started today, its shares rose 31 percent to $34.
.
New York-based Seamless, founded in 1999 by Jason Finger and Paul Appelbaum as SeamlessWeb, received early venture backing from Conshohocken-based SeventySix Capital in 2000. Philadelphia-based food service giant Aramark acquired SeamlessWeb in 2006. Spectrum Equity acquired a $50 million stake in SeamlessWeb from Aramark in 2011, and Aramark spun off the rest of the company to its private equity shareholders in 2012.

When Chicago-based GrubHub merged last year with Seamless, Seamless was said to be the larger entity. GrubHub revenue rose 67 percent to $137 million last year, although an apples-to-apples comparison of both GrubHub's and Seamless' 2013 revenue bases suggest a slower rate. It opened today with a valuation of about $2 billion.

Seamless, which still operates as a separate brand within GrubHub, generates most of its
revenue by serving large business customers.