Is Instacart's long-rumoured IPO finally happening?
Grocery tech company Instacart Inc. is set to publicly file for an initial public offering (IPO) with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) this week, according to numerous media reports. The company is planning to launch its long-awaited IPO this September.
San Francisco-based Instacart partners with more than 1,400 national, regional and local retail banners to facilitate online shopping, delivery and pickup services from 80,000-plus stores across North America on the Instacart Marketplace. The company has approximately 600,000 Instacart shoppers.
Instacart made its first moves to go public in May 2022. As the market for new listings soured, the company decided to delay its plans, as reported by Bloomberg. In October, CEO Fidji Simo wrote in a memo to staff that “extremely tumultuous” markets made it “highly unlikely” that an IPO would be possible that year. In addition to an unfavorable business climate, Instacart had recently been affected by more competition in the grocery delivery space as an increased number of retailers began multiple delivery companies, including DoorDash, Uber Eats and Grubhub.
Shortly after Simo's memo, Instacart slashed its internal valuation to about $13 billion after reducing it earlier in the year to $24 billion.
Instacart’s last effort to launch an IPO happened earlier this year, as reported by The Wall Street Journal. Per a memo viewed by the paper, Instacart’s revenue had increased more than 50% in the fourth quarter over the previous year’s fourth quarter. Also, for the full year, the company’s revenues surged a reported 39%.
All eyes will be on Instacart this week to see if the long-rumoured IPO will finally come to fruition.
The Instacart Platform offers retailers a suite of enterprise-grade technology products and services to power their e-commerce experiences, fulfill orders, digitize brick-and-mortar stores, provide advertising services, and glean insights. With Instacart Ads, thousands of CPGs – from category leaders to emerging brands – partner with the company to connect directly with consumers online, right at the point of purchase. Instacart Ads recently teamed up with Pacvue to offer new formats that deliver more targeted retail media advertising.
There’s also Instacart Health, which allows the company to provide tools to increase nutrition security, make healthy choices easier for consumers and expand the role that food can play in improving health outcomes.
