Instacart Pushes Its Way To A $13.7B Valuation With New $225M Funding Round

While demand for grocery pickup and delivery services grows during the COVID-19 pandemic, Instacart raised a new $225 million financing round led by DST Global and General Catalyst, the company said Thursday.

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Existing investor D1 Capital Partners also participated in the round, which now boosts the San Francisco-based company’s total venture raised to more than $2 billion since being founded in 2012, according to Crunchbase data. We reported Instacart last raised funds in October 2018, giving it a $7.6 billion valuation at that time. Backers over the past eight years have also included Tiger Global Management, Coatue Management, Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins. Thursday’s funding boosts Instacart’s valuation to $13.7 billion, the company said in a written release.

“COVID-19 created a massive shift for the grocery industry and forever changed how people view the necessity of on-demand services,” Instacart’s founder and CEO Apoorva Mehta said in a statement. “Overnight, Instacart became an essential service for millions of families across North America and our teams have worked incredibly hard to safely serve customers and shoppers during this time of need.”

The company said it plans to use the new funding to grow its client base through new services and features, invest in its businesses such as Instacart Advertising and Instacart Enterprise and scale its operations and technical teams to help meet the increased customer demand.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong-based DST Global’s capital infusion in Instacart comes as the investment company flexed its monetary muscle over the past month. Recent deals include a $150 million funding of fintech company Brex in May, and a $160 million round of funding for South Korea-based Market Kurly, also a grocery delivery company, in April. Soon after it raised money, Brex announced layoffs.

DST Global’s managing partner, Saurabh Gupta, said in a written statement that Instacart is providing “long-term value,” especially as it meets demand during COVID-19.

“It’s been remarkable to watch the Instacart team, in these unprecedented times, not only successfully scale its operations and technology to serve customers, but also provide earning opportunities for hundreds of thousands of shoppers, as well as continued business for its retail partners,” he said.

Illustration: Li-Anne Dias