The two biggest names in US on-demand delivery are becoming one. DoorDash has agreed to buy Instacart, the grocery delivery company formally called Maplebear, for $65 a share, about $17bn in equity value, the company said on 29 October alongside its third-quarter results.
The price is a 26% premium to Instacart's close on 22 October, the last trading day before reports of a possible sale. Instacart's board approved the deal unanimously, and holders of about 19% of its shares have agreed to vote for it, according to DoorDash's filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
How the deal works
- Instacart shareholders can take $65 in cash, 0.3372 DoorDash shares, or $48.75 in cash plus 0.0843 DoorDash shares. At least 75% of the total is paid in cash.
- DoorDash will pay with cash on hand and debt. JPMorgan has committed a 364-day bridge loan, and the deal has no financing condition.
- DoorDash targets $500m or more in yearly savings and gains over several years, but says it will reinvest more than all of them in the first year after closing.
- Closing needs Instacart shareholders' vote and approvals in the US, Canada and Israel. The companies expect it at the end of 2027 or in the first half of 2028.
DoorDash plans to keep Instacart's brand, app and the enterprise technology it sells to supermarkets, TechCrunch reports. "Grocery is one of the hardest things to get right online," DoorDash chief executive Tony Xu said. Instacart chief executive Chris Rogers said the company had helped retailers of all sizes compete and grow. Instacart had also held sale talks with Uber before walking away, Bloomberg reported, according to TechCrunch.
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DoorDash is already growing fast. Its third-quarter orders rose 28% to 993 million and the value of orders on its marketplace rose 36% to $33.9bn, with revenue of $4.62bn, CNBC reports. DoorDash shares rose more than 6% on the news; Instacart's were roughly flat.
The target is Amazon and Walmart, which are pushing same-day and next-day grocery delivery. Analysts expect regulators to look closely because the two companies overlap, CNBC notes. Instacart, which listed in 2023, agreed in December 2025 to pay $60m to settle US Federal Trade Commission claims that it misled users and signed them up to subscriptions unlawfully.
