Venture capital continues to flow into the crowded food delivery market.

DoorDash Inc., one of the leading players in the segment, today announced that it has closed a $600 million funding round at a formidable $12.6 billion valuation.

The investment comes a mere three months after the startup’s last raise of $400 million. Most of the participants in that previous round took the opportunity to increase their stakes, among them Sequoia Capital, while Darsana Capital Partners and Sands Capital came aboard as new investors.

DoorDash’s aggressive fundraising mirrors its rapid growth. The company claims that food orders on its platform rose more than 60% in the three months between the financing rounds, after a first quarter during which gross merchandise volume jumped 280% year-over-year. When looking at the total value of orders, DoorDash’s run rate is now $7.5 billion.

This momentum recently catapulted the startup past Uber Technology Inc. in the U.S. food delivery market. Data released in February by analytics provider Second Measure Inc. put DoorDash second behind only industry leader GrubHub Inc., which it may soon overtake if it keeps up the current pace of growth.

DoorDash’s food delivery platform offers items from 340,000 stores in 4,000 cities. The vast majority of those marketplaces are stateside, but the startup also has operations in Canada that it plans to double to 100 cities by the end of the year.

In addition to fueling expansion efforts, DoorDash will use the new capital to boost its budding DoorDash Drive platform. The offering enables retailers and other merchants to partner with the startup on delivering merchandise that they sell through their own channels. 

The funding brings DoorDash’s total capital raised to a round $2 billion. It comes less than a week after U.K.-based Deliveroo Ltd., a fellow food delivery startup that competes mainly in Europe and Asia, received a $575 million investment from an Amazon.com Inc.-led consortium.

Photo: DoorDash