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GrubHub IPO filing: 5 takeaways

By
Dan Primack
Dan Primack
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By
Dan Primack
Dan Primack
Down Arrow Button Icon
February 28, 2014, 5:19 PM ET

FORTUNE — Online food ordering company GrubHub this morning filed for an initial public offering, with plans to list its shares on the NYSE under ticker symbol GRUB. The official target is $100 million, but that is most likely a placeholder number.

Some quick takeaways from my first read of the filing.

1. Cubs 1, Yankees 0: The company was formed last year via a merger of Chicago-based GrubHub and New York-based Seamless, and was named GrubHub Seamless. Seems the Windy City won that battle, as the filing lists Chicago as the company’s headquarters and “Seamless” is no longer in the official name.

2. On the other hand: At the time of the merger, we knew that Seamless investors would hold a majority stake in the combined company. Now we know that it was a pretty significant differential. The four Seamless backers listed in the S-1 — Spectrum Equity, Thomas H. Lee Partners, Warburg Pincus and GS Capital Partners — hold a combined 38.9% equity stake. The two listed GrubHub backers — Benchmark Capital and Origin Ventures — hold 14.5%. Obviously there are a whole lot of shares not accounted for in those numbers (only >5% shareholders are listed), but this clearly was not a 51/49 sort of situation.

3. On the up and (mostly) up: The company’s revenue has grown quickly over the past three years, hitting $137 million last year. EBITDA is also on an upward trajectory, hitting $38 million last year. And the user figures are impressive, in terms of overall users (986k to 3.42m) and daily usage (62k to 108k). The only decrease is in terms of profits, which have steadily fallen, down to $6.7 million last year. Would seem that “operations and support” is the main source of extra burn (up 88% year-over-year), as things like sales and marketing have grown at a slower rate than has revenue. Of course, when it comes to VC-backed startups, profits rarely matter.

4. Top earner: The highest 2013 compensation at GrubHub wasn’t for CEO Mathew Maloney or president Jonathan Zabusky. It was for chief financial officer Adam DeWitt, who earned $717,000 (including in stock compensation). Zabusky had the highest annual salary, at $328,000.

5. Upset winner: It’s no surprise to see Morgan Stanley on the top line of this book because, well, because almost every single tech IPO has them listed on the top line. The surprise is that Morgan Stanley (MS) is on the right, with Citigroup (C) on the left. And Goldman Sachs (GS) is nowhere to be found.

Sign up for Dan Primack’s daily email newsletter on deals and deal-makers: GetTermSheet.com

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