DoorDash, for better or worse, has become an example of the 2016 VC funding environment. After reportedly failing to raise at a $1 billion valuation, the company had to settle for a flat round. So what happened, and how will it affect the company going forward — and other companies in the on-demand space, too?
So we’re excited to announce that DoorDash CEO Tony Xu, along with Sequoia Capital partner Alfred Lin, will be joining us at TechCrunch Disrupt NY to answer those questions.
And, of course, Xu and Lin are both deeply entrenched in the on-demand space, which is also facing a lot of scrutiny about the viability of on-demand economics. We’ll want to hear all about that, and more, from Xu and Lin, along with the current state of fundraising and what it’s like to run a startup in 2016.
Lin, in addition to sitting on the board of DoorDash, is also on the board of Houzz, Airbnb and Stella & Dot. Before joining Sequoia Capital he served as the chief operating officer of Zappos until 2010. He’s focused on consumer technology and enterprise at Sequoia Capital.
Before starting up DoorDash, Xu was a product lead at Square. He led the company to raising around $187 million in total in venture financing. DoorDash delivers food from local restaurants in its markets, a space that’s becoming increasingly crowded with competition like Postmates and, more recently, UberEats.
But the service has proven popular enough to attract significant investor interest, despite its reported fundraising challenges this year. We’ll hear a lot more about how the whole space works, and the future of DoorDash, in May at Disrupt NY.