Can’t stop thinking about the Deliveroo IPO. The whole story of the company demonstrates that the establishment loves talking about innovation more than supporting it.
Deliveroo is an incredible company. It develops world-class digital products, excels at design, and maintains customer-focused culture. Last year clearly demonstrated the value of their product and service for society. Its business model is complicated and requires massive scale to make the economics work but that makes me respect their progress so far even more. Everyone should be interested in having such companies HQ’ed in their countries, developing local talent, and eventually go public rather than selling out. IPO’s make employees rich and they go start or fund the next wave of disruptive companies.
UK does not have many local consumer technology businesses that successfully compete with US giants and grow internationally. So, in theory, Deliveroo should be supported and cheered for by the local establishment? Not so fast. (A) Authorities were withholding critical funding from Amazon for months while well-funded international competitors continued to pour money into the market. (B) The press loves to focus more on the controversies of the business (of which there are many) than on its value for the economy (of which there is even more). (C) And now the largest local investment funds publicly shunned the company during the IPO. It is your choice not to invest but why do you need to make a show out of it?
Now the stock opened 30% down which technically makes it an unsuccessful IPO. How many innovative UK businesses will follow Deliveroo and list in London rather than in New York like Farfetch did? What happens if Deliveroo becomes unsuccessful as a public company? Most likely it will be acquired by Amazon or DoorDash and the decision-making center will shift to the US. But I guess sceptics will be happy with how smart they were…
Quick thoughts on Deliveroo IPO Related Video:
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