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GrubHub, In IPO Filing, Reveals Too Lazy to Cook Site Is Profitable

February 28, 2014, 7:05 PM

Feb. 28, 2014 -- The restaurant food ordering website GrubHub filed for an initial public offering to raise $100 million, revealing that it's one dotcom that's actually making money.

Formerly called GrubHub Seamless Inc. after the two companies merged last August, the new firm, based in Chicago, is now called GrubHub Inc.

It announced on Friday morning that it filed a Form S-1 registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Here are some facts from the filing:

- GrubHub airs its financial figures for the first time, including revenue, which surged 67 percent to $137.1 million last year, and profit, which fell to $6.75 million in 2013 from $7.92 million the previous year.

- The company had more than 3.4 million active diners last year, compared with more than 2.3 million in 2012 and 1.6 million in 2011.

- It had 28,800 restaurants in its platform as of Dec. 31. The firm says its "primary target" is about 350,000 independent restaurants that account for 61 percent of all those in the U.S., based on figures from Euromonitor International. It has a presence in more than 600 cities in the U.S., the company said.

- GrubHub's CEO Matthew Maloney co-founded the company GrubHub Holdings in 2004, which had acquired DotMenu. He has an MBA and MSCS from the University of Chicago.

- Jonathan Zabusky, the former CEO of Seamless North America LLC, will continue as president of GrubHub Inc., the filing states. Seamless spun out of Aramark, then acquired Menu Pages. He moved up the ranks at Seamless, holding other gigs like vice president and then president of SeamlessWeb Professional Solutions Inc. He has a B.S. in Economics from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from the Haas School of the University of California, Berkeley.

- GrubHub Inc. has more than 40 trademarks registered in the U.S., including "GrubHub," "happy eating," "Seamless," "OrderHub" and "Your food is here."

- The company says its business is "highly dependent on diner behavior patterns."

"In our metropolitan markets, we generally experience a relative increase in diner activity from September to April and a relative decrease in diner activity from May to August," the company states in the filing. Similarly, the company's "campus markets" see higher order volume when school is in session, as opposed to summer breaks and other vacation periods.

"Colder or more inclement" weather "typically increases order volume," as opposed to "warmer or sunny weather, which typically decreases order volume."