Sources: Instacart cuts its internal valuation to ~$10B, down ~75% from $39B in March 2021; the company slashed its valuation every quarter in 2022
again PYMNTS.com : Instacart Valuation Cut for Fourth Time in 2022 Reuters : Instacart cuts internal valuation to $10 billion: report Daniel Levi / Tech News : Grocery delivery startup Instacart cuts internal valuation to $10 billion from $39 billion a year ago as it prepares for 2023 IPO Tweets: Cory Weinberg / @coryweinberg : every VC who invested in instacart after the pandemic hit is now underwater on their investment (on paper). https://twitter.com/... Erin Woo / @erinkwoo : scoop: @Instacart has cut its 409a valuation yet again, this time to around $10b (20% down since the last 409a valuation, and nearly 75% since its last funding round) https://www.theinformation.com/ ...
Context & Ripple Effects
Instacart has spent 2022 walking its paper value back from the peak: after raising $265M at a $39B valuation in March 2021, it made a voluntary cut to ~$24B framed as a recruiting and retention tool, then absorbed an external markdown when Capital Group marked its stake down to $14.7B, and took a third internal cut to ~$13B in October. Today's move to ~$10B is the fourth cut of the year — one per quarter — and lands with the company reportedly preparing a 2023 IPO.
The pattern matters because each cut resets a different constituency: the March cut was aimed at employee equity expectations, the fund markdowns at public-market investors, and this latest 409A at whatever price the IPO can clear. Cory Weinberg's note that every post-pandemic investor is now underwater on paper captures how far the reset has traveled.
First-order effects
- Investors who bought into Instacart after the pandemic hit are underwater on paper, since the ~$10B internal value sits below the prices paid during the 2021 run-up from $17.7B to $39B.
- Employee equity is repriced again: a valuation pitched in March as a retention lever has fallen another ~20% since the last 409A, shrinking the recruiting currency Instacart was explicitly trying to protect.
Second-order effects
- Other late-stage holders face the same mark-to-market pressure Capital Group already acted on, making further fund-level markdowns of Instacart stakes likely before any IPO prices.
- The 2023 IPO now has to clear a ~$10B anchor rather than anything near $39B, forcing Instacart to sell the offering on its reported growth — Q2 revenue of $1.04B and GTV of $10.35B, both up 14% year over year, plus above-estimate Q3 forecasts — instead of its peak-cycle valuation.
Third-order effects
- If quarterly 409A cuts become the standard pre-IPO playbook, the gap between peak private rounds and eventual public listings widens structurally, with post-peak-round investors absorbing losses that once would have been deferred to the market.
- Pandemic-era delivery valuations are being systematically unwound ahead of public listings, pressuring the whole cohort of 2021-vintage private marks to reprice against actual revenue multiples rather than growth-at-any-price comps.
The trend: Late-stage companies that raised at pandemic peaks are using successive internal valuation cuts to walk their marks down to IPO-viable levels, converting 2021's private-market froth into pre-listing losses for later-round investors.