• General
  • March 2, 2021
  • 4 minutes read

Instacart Raises $265M, Valued At $39B Ahead Of Expected IPO

The hot on-demand grocery delivery startup Instacart has raised another big funding round, this time a $265 million round led…

Instacart logo


The hot on-demand grocery delivery startup Instacart has raised another big funding round, this time a $265 million round led by a group of existing investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, D1 Capital Partners, Fidelity, and T. Rowe Price.

The new round values Instacart at $39 billion, more than double the $17.7 billion valuation it got after a $200 million round closed just five months ago.

As expected, Instacart will deploy its new capital towards business expansion and operations. The company has grown at an unprecedented rate over the past year as a Covid-19 pandemic widely drove up the demand for on-demand grocery delivery services.

For reference, Instacart reportedly had its very first profitable month last year at a time of record grocery orders made on its platform. In line with its rapid expansion, the company says it plans to boost its corporate headcount by 50% this year, with the growth fueled by recently raised capital.

Instacart will focus on expanding its three main businesses which are Instacart Marketplace, the marketplace for on-demand grocery deliveries from retailers; Instacart Advertising, a service for consumer goods manufacturers to advertise to Instacart’s large customer base; and Instacart Enterprise, an end-to-end Instacart-Esque e-commerce platform for retailers.

With its new funding round, Instacart has now raised a total of nearly $900 million in the span of a year. It seems that this new round may be the last or one of the last ones before a public listing for Instacart, which the company has hinted at with its recent hiring of a Chief Financial Officer (CFO) poached from banking firm Goldman Sachs.

Instacart has grown from a mere startup founded in 2012 into a grocery delivery powerhouse nine years later. It’s the biggest on-demand grocery delivery player in the US and Canada, being present in regions that sum up to 85% of U.S. households and 70% of Canadian households.

With returning investors for its new round and a valuation of $39 billion, it’s at face value that Instacart has a very healthy business that’s lured and bonded big-name investors with big rounds for the company.

Correction: We made a correction to indicate that Instacart has raised a total of nearly $900 million in the span of a year, not the previously stated $800 million.

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