BEIJING—China’s burgeoning middle class, which increasingly is going online for everything from ordering lunch to booking hotel rooms, is fueling expectations that an 8-year-old startup with an innovative smartphone app will go public at a lofty $60 billion valuation this year.
Meituan-Dianping defies easy comparison to a like company in the U.S., instead providing a range of services—vouchers like Groupon Inc., reviews in the style of Yelp Inc., food delivery similar to Grubhub Inc. and travel services akin to those provided...