Instacart Slowing Down Hiring Ahead Of IPO, Report Says

Instacart is slowing down hiring to focus on profitability ahead of going public, Bloomberg reported this week.

The grocery delivery company filed confidentially for an initial public offering earlier this month. The company has been an IPO contender for a while, but it’s unclear when that event would take place, given the recent volatility in the public markets.

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Bloomberg reported that an IPO could happen as soon as this year.

Instacart hired 1,500 people and almost doubled its engineering teams last year, Bloomberg reported. The company saw an upside to the COVID-19 pandemic, with demand for Instacart’s services skyrocketing. But it’s unclear if demand has remained as high this year with mass rollouts of the COVID-19 vaccines.

Inflation, rising interest rates and geopolitical issues have caused volatility in the public markets, and the chaos has trickled down to the private market as well.

Tech hiring and employment woes

The company joins other tech companies like Uber in slowing down hiring after periods of rapid growth. Additionally, there’s been a slew of layoffs among startups in recent months, with high-profile tech companies like Bolt, Klarna and Robinhood slashing staff. It’s pretty much the opposite of what the past roughly two years have been like, with companies ramping up hiring after raising capital in 2020 and 2021.

Instacart lowered its own valuation by around 40 percent to $24 billion earlier this year, following turbulence in the public markets. Tech stocks were hit particularly hard, leading to Instacart bringing its own valuation down to reality.

Based in Redwood City, Instacart last raised $232 million in a round of funding in November. The company has raised nearly $3 billion in funding since it was founded in 2012 from investors including D1 Capital Partners, Andreessen Horowitz and Tiger Global Management.