CONNECT WITH US
Tech

Tech

Why DoorDash is spending $17 billion to acquire Instacart

Fast Company logo

Published on

Add as a preferred source on Google
Why DoorDash is spending $17 billion to acquire Instacart

DoorDash has agreed to acquire grocery rival Instacart for $17 billion, a deal that will bolster the delivery company’s move into grocery and boost business at the largest third-party delivery platform in America. 

Instacart, which launched in 2012, works with some 2,200 stores covering nearly 100,000 locations. DoorDash’s acquisition of the grocery delivery giant is a huge step toward its ultimate goal of revamping local business while owning all kinds of local delivery. 

DoorDash is still, fundamentally, a restaurant-delivery app. Delivery from restaurants in the U.S. remains the $73 billion company’s core business; in the second quarter of this year, restaurant order value grew as much as it did in all of 2022.

In 2025, the company took in $13.7 billion in revenue (while it doesn’t break out revenue by category, it’s safe to assume most came from its restaurant business). 

But more and more DoorDash users are tapping the app for other purchases. In Q2 2026, members of the company’s DashPass subscription program placed roughly three-quarters of the company’s grocery and retail orders in the U.S.

During an August earnings call, DoorDash CEO Tony Xu declared grocery the “fastest-growing part of our marketplace business.” DoorDash’s stock briefly dropped earlier this week on the news that it was pursuing an acquisition, a signal that at least some investors have concerns about the tie-in.

The company has been on a spending spree lately. 2 billion on restaurant reservations platform SevenRooms, $300 million on Grubhub’s campus dining business, and a comparatively small $175 million on ad platform Symbiosys.


Source link
Related Topics:Tech

Disclaimer

We strive to uphold the highest ethical standards in all of our reporting and coverage. We TheMorningPulse.fyi want to be transparent with our readers about any potential conflicts of interest that may arise in our work. It's possible that some of the investors we feature may have connections to other businesses, including competitors or companies we write about. However, we want to assure our readers that this will not have any impact on the integrity or impartiality of our reporting. We are committed to delivering accurate, unbiased news and information to our audience, and we will continue to uphold our ethics and principles in all of our work. Thank you for your trust and support.