DASH · Industrials(services-business services, nec) · 9 years of annual accounts filed with the SEC · latest fiscal year ended 2025-12-31
DoorDash, Inc. reported revenue of $13.7 billion in fiscal 2025. Of the $6.9 billion its operations generated over 9 years, 66.0% went to acquisitions and 20.7% to buybacks. On the accounting screens, it passes 4 of 7 Piotroski tests and its Altman Z'' of 1.46 is in the grey zone; 3 of the six cross-checks between its statements fire.
Revenue, fiscal 202513.7B
Operating margin5.3%gross margin —
Return on invested capital—
Free cash flow after stock pay1.1B8.2% of revenue
Net debt ÷ EBITDA—net debt —
Piotroski F-score4/7tests of improvement passed
Share counts are in today's shares. The SEC's filings restate only recent years after a split, so these jumps were read as splits and the older years scaled to match — otherwise per-share figures would compare different units:
5-for-1 before fiscal 2021.
Is it growing?
Revenue and the operating income it turns into. Growth that does not reach operating income is growth bought with margin.
RevenueOperating income
-5.0B05.0B10.0B15.0B
2017
2018Revenue 291.0MOperating income -210.0M
2019Revenue 885.0MOperating income -616.0M
2020Revenue 2.9BOperating income -436.0M
2021Revenue 4.9BOperating income -452.0M
2022Revenue 6.6BOperating income -1.1B
2023Revenue 8.6BOperating income -579.0M
2024Revenue 10.7BOperating income -38.0M
2025Revenue 13.7BOperating income 723.0M
201720182019202020212022202320242025
Compound growth a year
3 yrs
5 yrs
8 yrs
Revenue
+27.7%
+36.6%
—
Free cash flow per share
+112.6%
+60.2%
—
Shares
+5.8%
+7.1%
—
Falling shares are buybacks: each remaining share owns more of the company.
Does it earn more than its capital costs?
Margins say how much of each sale is kept; return on invested capital says how much the business earns on the money it needs to operate. Growth only creates value when that return is above the cost of the capital.
Needs a cost of capital, which comes from the valuation below.
Return on equity
9.3%
Return on assets
4.8%
Asset turnover
0.70×
Research & development
10.4% of revenue
Overheads (SG&A)
11.7% of revenue
Is the profit cash, and where does the cash go?
Net income is an accounting opinion; free cash flow is what was left in the bank after investing. Stock-based pay does not leave the bank — shareholders pay it through dilution — so it is shown taken off as well.
Net incomeFree cash flowAfter stock-based pay
-2.0B-1.0B01.0B2.0B3.0B
2017
2018Net income -204.0MFree cash flow -172.0MAfter stock-based pay -196.0M
2019Net income -667.0MFree cash flow -545.0MAfter stock-based pay -563.0M
2020Net income -461.0MFree cash flow 146.0MAfter stock-based pay -176.0M
2021Net income -468.0MFree cash flow 563.0MAfter stock-based pay 77.0M
2022Net income -1.4BFree cash flow 191.0MAfter stock-based pay -698.0M
2023Net income -558.0MFree cash flow 1.6BAfter stock-based pay 462.0M
2024Net income 123.0MFree cash flow 2.0BAfter stock-based pay 929.0M
2025Net income 935.0MFree cash flow 2.2BAfter stock-based pay 1.1B
201720182019202020212022202320242025
Where 9 years of operating cash went, 2017–2025
6.9B generated by the business. Each band is its share of that total.
Reinvested in the business 14%986.0M
Acquisitions 66%4.6B
Dividends 0%0
Share buybacks 21%1.4B
More than it generated: funded with cash or new debt -1%-64.0M
Over the same years it paid 5.0B in stock. The buybacks did not even cover what was handed out in stock.
Per share
Earnings per shareFree cash flow per shareDividend per share
$-5.00$-2.50$0.00$2.50$5.00
2017
2018
2019Earnings per share $-3.08Free cash flow per share $-2.52
2020Earnings per share $-1.48Free cash flow per share $0.47
2021Earnings per share $-1.39Free cash flow per share $1.67
2022Earnings per share $-3.68Free cash flow per share $0.51
2023Earnings per share $-1.42Free cash flow per share $3.94
2024Earnings per share $0.29Free cash flow per share $4.71
2025Earnings per share $2.13Free cash flow per share $4.94
201720182019202020212022202320242025
Shares outstanding
Diluted shares
200.0M300.0M400.0M500.0M
2017
2018
2019Diluted shares 216.3M
2020Diluted shares 311.9M
2021Diluted shares 336.8M
2022Diluted shares 371.4M
2023Diluted shares 392.9M
2024Diluted shares 430.2M
2025Diluted shares 439.7M
201720182019202020212022202320242025
How strong is the balance sheet?
Debt is not bad in itself; debt the business cannot service in a bad year is. Net debt is debt minus cash, and below zero the company holds more cash than it owes.
Net debt ÷ EBITDA
—
Interest coverage
— operating income ÷ interest
Current ratio
1.41 current assets ÷ current liabilities
Cash conversion cycle
— collects in 29d
Three classic screens of the accounts
Each asks a different question of the same statements — is it improving, does it look like a company heading for distress, do the accounts resemble ones that were manipulated. None is a verdict; each shows what moves it.
Piotroski F-score
Is the business improving? Nine yes-or-no tests, this year against last.
4of 7 tests passed
✓ProfitableReturn on assets above zeropassed
✓Cash from operationsOperating cash flow above zeropassed
✓Profitability improvedReturn on assets higher than a year beforepassed
✓Profit backed by cashOperating cash flow above net income (low accruals)passed
–Less long-term debtLong-term debt as a share of assets fell — not reportedno data
✕More liquidCurrent ratio higher than a year beforefailed
✕No new sharesShare count did not growfailed
–Better gross marginGross margin higher than a year before — not reportedno data
✕Sells more per assetAsset turnover higher than a year beforefailed
Where it misleads: it measures change, not level. An excellent business that stood still for a year scores low; a poor one recovering from a disaster scores high.
Altman Z''-score
Does the balance sheet look like those of companies that went bankrupt?
1.46grey zone
1.12.6
Working capital ÷ assets 0.13 × 6.56+0.83
Retained earnings ÷ assets -0.22 × 3.26-0.72
Operating income ÷ assets 0.04 × 6.72+0.25
Equity ÷ liabilities 1.04 × 1.05+1.10
Where it misleads: buybacks. A company that returns so much cash that its equity turns small or negative sinks the last two ratios without being anywhere near bankruptcy. Banks and insurers do not fit the model at all.
Beneish M-score
Do the accounts resemble those of companies that manipulated their earnings?
The accounts lack too many of the lines it needs.
Where the statements disagree
Cross-checks between the income statement, the balance sheet and the cash flow for the latest year, each with the benign reading and the worrying one.
Receivables are growing 51% against revenue growing 28%.
Benign
A shift towards larger customers on longer terms, or sales concentrated at the end of the period.
Worrying
Sales are being made on looser credit, or revenue has been booked that may never be collected.
Capital spending (257M) is well below depreciation (747M).
Benign
Mature assets, or a business that has become less capital-intensive.
Worrying
Under-investing: today's profit is being held up by consuming tomorrow's capacity.
The effective tax rate is 0.7%.
Benign
A favourable geographic mix, or legitimate tax credits.
Worrying
Not sustainable; projecting it forward inflates the valuation.
What is it worth, under which assumptions?
A company is worth the cash it will generate, brought back to today. This model projects revenue with growth that fades over the years, applies a free cash flow margin, and discounts the result at the cost of capital. Every assumption says where it came from, and all of them can be changed.
With a free cash flow margin at or below zero in year ten, the business never generates cash for its owners and a DCF says nothing useful. Set a positive margin for year ten to see what it would take.
What it has filed lately
The last twelve months at the SEC, most important first: annual and quarterly reports, events, large holders and insiders.
Accounts from the company's own SEC filings; lines some companies do not report are shown as a dash rather than estimated. The risk-free rate is the 10-year US Treasury yield. A DCF is a way of making assumptions explicit, not a forecast: it states what the company would be worth if the assumptions held. The scores are screens that point where to look, not verdicts. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy or sell.