Deliveroo: from London's worst IPO flop to its first annual profit in 2024

Deliveroo's March 2021 London IPO was the city's biggest launch in a decade, valuing the company at £7.6bn, but the stock tumbled by almost a third from its 390p offer price on day one as investors questioned rider treatment and the path to profit. It was dubbed the worst IPO in London's history, and founder-CEO Will Shu was left running a public company whose model the market had rejected.

The turning-point decision was discipline over growth at any cost. Shu committed to a 'path to profitability': cutting marketing and overhead, and exiting markets where Deliveroo lacked the scale to win. In 2022 it pulled out of the Netherlands and put its Australian arm into voluntary administration, ending a business with 15,000 delivery partners and 12,000 restaurants rather than fund the investment needed to challenge Uber Eats and Menulog.

The discipline compounded. Losses narrowed through 2022 and 2023, and in March 2025 Deliveroo announced its first annual profit: £2.9m after tax for 2024, versus a £31.8m loss the year before, on revenue of about £2.1bn. Weeks earlier it had also exited Hong Kong, citing intensifying competition — the same playbook applied one more time.

The turnaround made Deliveroo attractive: in May 2025 US rival DoorDash agreed to acquire it for about £2.9bn. Still, that price sat far below the £7.6bn IPO valuation, a reminder of how much value the botched debut and the loss-making years destroyed before the fix took hold.

First annual profit in 2024: £2.9m profit after tax (vs £31.8m loss in 2023) on ~£2.1bn revenue; later a £2.9bn DoorDash takeover.

The 2021 IPO collapse forced a public reckoning that made profitability, not growth, the company's explicit north star.

Exiting the Netherlands, Australia and later Hong Kong removed persistent cash drains in markets where Deliveroo could not reach a winning position.

The 2024 result — first profit after 12 years and cumulative losses — validates market exits as a strategy rather than an admission of failure.

The subsequent £2.9bn DoorDash takeover shows a cleaned-up, profitable platform becomes acquirable at scale.

Profitability beats footprint: exiting markets where you cannot win frees capital and focus, and a burned reputation can be rebuilt through years of disciplined execution.

In May 2025 DoorDash agreed to buy Deliveroo for about £2.9bn, creating a group present in roughly 40 countries handling some $90bn of annual orders. Will Shu backed the deal, but the price was well under half the 2021 IPO valuation — the turnaround saved the company, not its debut investors.