* Plans to sell 175 mln euros in new shares
* Some shareholders to sell too, founder to remain largest
* New funds to support growth, marketing, pay off debt (Updates after company confirms intention to seek listing)
By Toby Sterling
AMSTERDAM, Sept 6 (Reuters) - Takeaway.com, the Dutch-based online restaurant ordering and delivery service, said on Tuesday it would seek a listing on Amsterdam's Euronext stock exchange in the coming weeks.
The company said it would sell 175 million euros ($195 million) in newly-issued shares, as well as an unspecified amount of shares offered by current shareholders. These include investors Macquarie and Prime Ventures, as well as founder Jitse Groen, who said he expected to sell 5 percent of his personal stake and remain the company's largest shareholder.
"The listing will provide Takeaway.com with additional capital to strengthen our operations and to fund our marketing efforts," Groen said on a conference call.
Takeaway is focussed in particular on Germany, where its Lieferando.de subsidiary is engaged in fierce competition with rival Delivery Hero. The company will also pay off all existing debts.
Two sources familiar with Takeaway's plans told Reuters last week the company was preparing an "intention to float".
One banking source said the company was seeking a valuation of eight to nine times 2015 sales, or at least 800 million euros.
Another person familiar with the matter said that figure was "way too low," given the company's recent rapid growth.
On Tuesday, the company said it made a loss of 11.5 million euros ($12.8 million) in the first six months of 2016, on sales of 50.5 million euros.
The company's sales growth rate has averaged over 50 percent annually since 2013.
Founded in 2000 by Groen, then a Dutch student, Takeaway.com is the largest restaurant delivery service in the Netherlands. It said on Tuesday it was also the largest in Germany, Belgium, Austria and Poland - though rivals may dispute that, depending on the metrics used.
Takeaway had an estimated 7 million active customers as of March 31.
The company said it was currently only profitable in the Netherlands - with a margin on earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of 63 percent.
The company has raised a total of $118 million in funding so far, according to Tech Crunch data.
Over the summer, Takeaway.com sold its British operations to Just Eat for an undisclosed sum, and then bought Just Eat's operations in the Benelux for 22 million euros. of America Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) are global coordinators for the offering, with ABN Amro and UBS acting as joint bookrunners.
($1 = 0.8970 euros)