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.

Aramark spins off remaining stake in Seamless to its shareholders

Tom Paine

Follow @phillytechnews

Philly-based food service giant Aramark announced today that it had spun off its remaining stake in New York-based Seamless (originally SeamlessWeb), the online food ordering pioneer, to Aramark shareholders. Aramark acquired Seamless in 2006. Early investors included the Conshohocken-based VC firm now known as Artists & Instigators.

Last year Aramark sold what it described as a minority stake in Seamless to Spectrum Equity for $50 million and relinquished operating control.

Jason Finger, who founded Seamless in 1999, left the company in 2010. Earlier this year he joined IAC as CEO of its CityGrid Media unit (which by the way includes UrbanSpoon).

This interview with Finger from 2009 recounts the history of Seamless.



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Daily Links 3/20/2012: Philly's Venmo in public launch

After 2 Years of Testing, Venmo Opens Payment Service to Public (New York Times: Bits)
Venmo is based in Philly; investors include Accel Partners (though Times reporter apparently couldn't find that out).

Oracle Reports Q3 GAAP EPS Up 20% to 49 Cents; Q3 Non-GAAP EPS Up 15% to 62 Cents (Marketwire)
Meets revenue guidance, exceeds soft EPS guidance. Hardware revenue continues sharp decline.

Oracle Exceeds Estimates on Corporate Demand
(Bloomberg)

QVC Announces China Joint Venture (PR Newswire)

Google Says Motorola Buyout Boosts Choice as China Extends Probe (Bloomberg)

Motorola Hops Into CDN Market With EdgeCast
Vendor Targets Cable Operators Worldwide With Content Delivery Network Offering (Multichannel News)

Comcast Presents Consumer Benefits of Spectrum Assignment to Senate (Comcast Voices/Official Comcast Blog)


Amazon Acquires Kiva Systems in Second-Biggest Takeover (Bloomberg)
The key purpose of Amazon's acquisition of Quidsi in 2010 was probably to learn from what Quidsi was doing to automate the warehouse. Getting the warehouse inventory picking process under control is critical to Amazon's mass distribution strategy. Quidsi was deploying Kiva's products.
Meanwhile, Amazon and New Jersey are reported to be close to a deal that would give Amazon a sales tax exemption in the state in return for building warehouses that would provide up to 1500 jobs.

Edmund Optics “Goes Live” With SAP® Business All-in-One and Other Solutions From SAP, Deployed by Answerthink (Business Wire)
Edmund Optics is based in Barrington, NJ.

Leading Professional Services Company Launches New ARAMARK Healthcare Technologies Brand (PR Newswire)

Thomson Reuters Healthcare Unit, We’ve Been Here Before
(Wall Street Journal: Deal Journal)



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Daily Links 9/27/2011: Google, Dish top Hulu bidding, but bids may be too low for owners

InterDigital Up 4%: Considering Whole Or Partial Sale Of Co. (Barron's: Tech Trader Daily)
InterDigital Press Release

PANL: No LG Deal Imminent, Says Canaccord (Barron's: Tech Trader Daily)

Google and Dish top bids for Hulu (Reuters)

Google, Intel Consider Ultra-Fast Broadband for University Towns (Bloomberg)
Article says Comcast is also considering project, though I'm not sure exactly what that means.

Comcast: Not Just Bigger — Better
Smit’s Comcast Powered By Innovation, Communication (Multichannel News)

Cable ad plan fizzles (New York Post)
On Canoe Ventures, partially backed by Comcast.

Seamless, Fresh Out of Corporate Fetters, Buys MenuPages for $15 M. as GrubHub Comes Nipping (Betabeat)
Philly-based Aramark sold a $50 million stake in Seamless in June and spun it off as a separate company, although it apparently retains a partial stake in it.

Lessons From Britain’s Health Information Technology Fiasco (New York Times: Bits)

Cognizant to Strengthen Retail Industry Capabilities with Acquisition of Princeton-based Zaffera, a Leading SAP Retail Consulting and Solutions Firm (PR Newswire)



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Daily Links 6/8/2011: Google And Invite Media One Year Later

Comcast Scales Up Home Security Push
Expands Broadband-Based System to Seven Markets, Including Philadelphia, Houston, and Portland, Ore. (Multichannel News)

How Will NBCUniversal's Olympics Deal Affect Comcast's Stock? (Hollywood Reporter)

NBC finally ‘gets it,’ will kill the Olympic tape delay (Gigaom: NewTeeVee)

GE, Capital One Said to Vie for ING Online Bank; Bids May Reach $9 Billion (Bloomberg)

Google And Invite Media: One Year Later, DSP Looks To Global Expansion (paidContent)

Online advertising a boon for Philadelphia firms (Philly.com: Philly Deals)


appMobi Acquires Hosting Platform; Launches Tech To Speed Up HTML5 In Mobile Gaming (TechCrunch)

ARAMARK Sells Stake In Online Food Ordering Service SeamlessWeb For $50M (TechCrunch)

Sprint Pares Clearwire Voting Interest to Less Than 50% (Bloomberg)

Dell Plans New VAR Cloud Certification By Year-end (CRN)

Twitter post leads to LVEDC firing
Tweet about summer hours policy contributes to employee's termination (Allentown Morning Call)

U.S. Federal Reserve Beige Book: Philadelphia District (Text) (Bloomberg)



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