Instacart files for a US IPO, reports 2022 revenue up 39% YoY to $2.55B, $428M net income, up from a $73M loss in 2021, and H1 2023 revenue up 31% YoY to $1.48B
Common Stock This is an initial public offering of shares of common stock … Bill Peters / MarketWatch : Instacart files for IPO, joining crowded field of gig-economy names as markets rebound Hayden Field / CNBC : Instacart files to go public on Nasdaq to try and unfreeze tech IPO market Bloomberg : Instacart's IPO Plans Show Bottom-Line Benefit of Strategy Shift PYMNTS.com : Instacart Files for IPO, Says Online Penetration in Grocery Could Double Cory Weinberg / The Information : Pepsi, Norway and a Lockup Quirk: Our Takeaways From Instacart's IPO Filing Insider : It's the return of the tech IPO. Instacart says it's profitable — and this may be the necessary secret ingredient for a hot market debut in 2023. Wajeeh Khan / Invezz : Instacart files to go live on Nasdaq Sam Becker / Fast Company : Instacart IPO: 3 key takeaways from the company's S-1 filing Marlize van Romburgh / Crunchbase News : Klaviyo And Instacart File Going-Public Plans, Kickstarting IPO Market Sara Bloomberg / San Francisco Business Journal : Instacart's IPO is on again: Here's what we know TechCrunch : Five takeaways from Instacart's S-1 filing Tabby Kinder / Financial Times : US grocery delivery company Instacart files for IPO New York Times : Instacart Reveals $428 Million in Profit but Slowing Growth Ahead of I.P.O. Niket Nishant / Reuters : Grocery delivery app Instacart reveals revenue jump in IPO filing Bloomberg : Instacart Files for IPO Revealing Profit, PepsiCo Investment Fortune : Instacart files for IPO as a logjam of would-be publicly traded companies eye their market debuts Threads: Trevor Croker / @trevorcroker : Hi! This is Instacart, your latest tech IPO! I just arrived at the SEC and I'm going to get started on a Nasdaq listing ; please let me know if you would like anything else in the meantime. https://www.cnbc.com/... Bluesky: Greg Linden / @glinden.bsky.social : Net profit looks like it is better described as breakeven after removing the tax benefit of $358M. And that's only because of putting a lot of ads in the product which might cause growth problems long-term. The core problem remains, smaller market if they charge what is necessary to be profitable. … X: @modestproposal1 : Thanks everyone who responded. According to blog posts by both Instacart and Databricks, Instacart began using Databricks in the last year. Additionally Instacart talks about significant improvements in efficiency with Snowflake. So combo of migration and optimization. [image] @modestproposal1 : Lots to chew on in Instacart S-1, but was curious what people make of this. Their Snowflake bill was $13M, $28M, $51M in 2020/21/22. 2023 bill will be $15M. Is that just “optimization”? Did they migrate? Is that indicative of the magnitude of optimizations? What's the read here? [image] Eric Seufert / @eric_seufert : Instacart was one of my original, canonical “Everything is an Ad Network” references. Per its S-1, filed today, the company generated $740MM in ad revenue (+ “other") in 2022 on $2.5BN in total revenue, for roughly 30%. Everything is an ad network. [image] Andrew Brackin / @brackin : Instacart's ad business has massive potential. CPG advertising is such a massive % of ad spend that wants to move online. Has barely been touched by SEM, social, etc. Bill Gurley / @bgurley : Numbers look impressive on first read. Congrats to team. Eric Jackson / @ericjackson : You can't call it a tech bubble until Instacart IPOs... @jason : They really turned this business around over the years... in the face of a lot of headwinds. Congrats to the @instacart team (we are users of good eggs, UberEats AND Instacart) @alex : ok so the klaviyo and instacart IPOs are super solid re: profits and growth and should do fine wonder if they will shake loose other entrants what we need next is some kinda ok middle-tier unicorn that is still burning cash to try and get out Edwin / @edwinwee : Congrats to one of @Stripe's first users. From multiparty payments to instant payouts to tax compliance, growing alongside Instacart has been a journey. (In rare instances, you may encounter a Stripe moonlighting as an Instacart Shopper making sure the UX on our side is right.) Tom Dotan / @cityofthetown : “We believe that the COVID-19 pandemic and its variant outbreaks had minimal impact on our order volume following the third quarter of 2022” You can pretty much pinpoint in the Instacart S1 when Americans stopped caring about Covid. https://www.sec.gov/... [image] Eric Newcomer / @ericnewcomer : Sequoia and D1 are the only firms listed as owning more than 5% of Instacart Sar Haribhakti / @sarthakgh : Instacart and Uber are tracking to cross a billion in annual ads revenue very soon @alexisohanian : Congrats @apoorva_mehta @Max and the entire @Instacart team for making something people love. Proud to be a seed investor 🌱 Nate Becker / @natebecker : Heyyy Instacart's S-1 just dropped! It has lots of key new figures in it like revenue, profit and transaction volume. Oh wait, they're not new because @coryweinberg reported them all last weekend: https://www.theinformation.com/ ... Sheel Mohnot / @pitdesi : Gross profit of 6.4%. Surprised that the Covid bump didn't mean-revert, though CaC has gone up a lot [image] Erin Griffith / @eringriffith : what is this, a profitable gig economy startup? https://www.nytimes.com/... Ian Kar / @iankar_ : Interesting from Instacart's S-1: for every $110 AOV transaction made, Instacart makes $7 in gross profit [image] Sheel Mohnot / @pitdesi : Instacart S-1 launched 262M orders/yr (flat YoY) $28B GTV / $109 AOV (⬆️ 4%) $2.5B revenue (⬆️ 31%) The part that surprised me most: $740M Ad revenue! (⬆️ 24%) Point-of-purchase ads are powerful! Rachel Metz / @rachelmetz : today has been full of surprises, not the least of which being that instacart's actual business name is apparently maplebear! (is this a canadian thing? i think one of the founders is indian and canadian.) Ian Kar / @iankar_ : wait...why is SoFi Securities listed as an underwriter for the Instacart IPO? [image] @garrytan : Instacart files for its IPO Huge congrats @apoorva_mehta @fidjissimo 🚀🚀🚀 https://www.axios.com/... Cory Weinberg / @coryweinberg : Looks like it will be a decently sized IPO. Norges Bank, TCV, Sequoia Capital, D1 Capital Partners, and Valiant. “have indicated an interest, severally and not jointly, in purchasing shares of common stock in an aggregate amount of up to approximately $400 million” Cory Weinberg / @coryweinberg : NEWS: Instacart IPO filing says Pepsi (a big advertiser) agrees to be a new investor in the company in a private placement, at the TBD IPO price. This may help juice its IPO demand. Full Filing here: https://www.sec.gov/... Erin Griffith / @eringriffith : also LOL at maplebear LLC guys change your cutesy dba before the s-1 Erin Griffith / @eringriffith : ipos are back baby Matthew Belloni / @mattbelloni : Overpriced and late, no doubt... LinkedIn: Mitch Louch : Part of me thinks this could be an “Amazon in the dot com era” kind of moment for Retail. A major turning point towards the future at a time many didn't think there was a viable one. …
Context & Ripple Effects
Instacart entered the filing process after reporting that its advertising business generated roughly $740M in 2022, making ads nearly 30% of revenue. That mix gives public-market investors a lens beyond grocery-order volume for evaluating the company’s growth and profitability.
The filing follows reports that first-half revenue grew more than 30% while gross transaction volume grew about 5%, sharpening the question of how much future expansion comes from higher-value platform services rather than order growth. The subsequent IPO pricing at a roughly $10B fully diluted valuation also put a markedly lower public-market benchmark on the business than its 2021 private valuation.
First-order effects
- Instacart must disclose its financial performance, business mix, major investors and operating dependencies to prospective public shareholders; indicated investor interest and PepsiCo’s concurrent private placement support the offering process.
- The filing makes the company’s shift from a 2021 net loss to 2022 net income central to its equity story, alongside 31% first-half 2023 revenue growth.
Second-order effects
- Retailers, CPG brands and ad buyers gain a clearer view of the economics behind Instacart’s retail-media offering, following its reported $740M 2022 ad business. That can strengthen their leverage in negotiations over platform spending and data access.
- Other gig-economy and marketplace issuers face a more explicit valuation test: investors can compare growth in transaction volume with growth from ads and other higher-margin services.
Third-order effects
- If public investors continue to reward marketplaces that add advertising and software-like revenue, grocery-delivery platforms may be evaluated less as pure logistics businesses and more as retail-media infrastructure.
- The eventual offering valuation suggests the broader reset in late-stage technology pricing can persist even when a company demonstrates profitability; the durability of that reset depends on public investors’ appetite after listing.
The trend: Consumer marketplaces are seeking public-market credibility by converting transaction data and merchant relationships into advertising-led revenue streams with stronger economics than delivery alone.