LONDON - Just Eat, an online food ordering service, said on Thursday that it had raised 360.1 million pounds, or almost $600 million, in its initial public offering on the London Stock Exchange.
The service, which allow users to order food from local takeout restaurants via websites or apps, priced its offering at 260 pence a share, giving it a market capitalization of £1.47 billion. It is similar to GrubHub in the United States, which is planning its own I.P.O. this year in New York.
Just Eat will receive about £100 million of the proceeds, with the rest going to its backers who sold shares in the I.P.O. The company floated about 24.6 percent of its capital in the offering.
Shares of Just Eat rose about 6.1 percent to 275.79 pence early Thursday in conditional trading on the London Stock Exchange.
“We look forward to life as a listed company as we join the market through the LSE’s High Growth Segment and continue expanding our leading online platform for takeaway food,†David Buttress, chief executive of Just Eat, said in a statement.
Just Eat, which operates in 13 countries including Britain, Brazil, France and India, is the first major listing in Britain, rather than in the United States, by a London technology company.
Poundland, a discount retailer that sells everything for £1 or less; Pets at Home, a pet supplies retailer; and Brit, a specialty insurer, all listed their shares in London last month.
The Silicon Valley venture capital firms Greylock Partners and Redpoint Ventures, and the European private equity firm Vitruvian Partners, were among Just Eat’s existing stockholders who sold shares in the offering.
Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase acted as joint underwriters on the offering.
