Instacart

Instacart is a North American online grocery marketplace that connects customers with local and national retailers for same-day delivery and curbside pickup. Customers select items from participating stores on Instacart.com or the mobile app, and a personal shopper in their area shops the order and delivers it, with in-app chat, real-time order tracking, replacement preferences (find best match, pick specific replacement, or don't replace), contactless "Leave at My Door" delivery as the default, and a stated 100% quality guarantee.

The company's own site describes the marketplace as the largest online grocery marketplace in North America, citing roughly 1 billion products in the catalog, 80,000 stores, 14,000 cities served across the U.S. and Canada, and a selection of more than 500 retailers and local grocers; its corporate site cites 15k+ cities, 2,200+ retail banners and 100k+ stores. Ordering does not require a membership, including at warehouse clubs such as Costco, Sam's Club and BJ's Wholesale Club. An optional Instacart+ membership provides $0 delivery fees on eligible orders above stated basket minimums (grocery and retail $10+, Costco $35+, restaurants $25+), with service fees still applying.

Beyond consumer delivery, Instacart operates an enterprise business for retailers and an advertising business for brands. Recent initiatives include AI-powered Caper Carts and Smart Trolleys deployed in stores (including at a Morrisons location in the UK), a shoppable vertical video ad format, an Instacart Health program, and expansion of on-demand delivery into non-grocery retail categories such as sporting goods, hardware and farm supplies.

Founding story

Instacart was started in 2012 by Apoorva Mehta together with co-founders Max Mullen and Brandon Leonardo, and went through Y Combinator's Summer 2012 batch. Mehta, an engineering graduate of the University of Waterloo, previously worked at BlackBerry, Qualcomm and Amazon. Leonardo built early versions of the Instacart app and had prior senior engineering roles at AngelList, Webs and StartupBus. Mullen, a University of Southern California graduate, had previously worked at startups including the interactive agency Schematic.

Business model

Instacart runs a three-sided marketplace: retail partners list their assortments, customers place orders online or in the app, and independent personal shoppers pick and deliver the items, typically same-day and in as fast as an hour. Retail partners set item prices on the marketplace, and some prices may differ from in-store prices. Alongside the consumer marketplace, the company sells enterprise technology to retailers (including in-store hardware such as Caper Carts and Smart Trolleys) and advertising products to brands.

Revenue sources indicated by the sources include delivery fees (starting at $3.99 for same-day orders over $35, varying for one-hour, club-store and sub-$35 orders), pickup fees, variable service fees (with a separate service fee on alcohol orders), the Instacart+ subscription, retailer-facing enterprise services, and advertising sold to brands.

Traction

Company-stated scale figures include roughly 1 billion products in the catalog, 80,000 stores, 14,000 cities and millions of orders delivered or picked up yearly, with the corporate site citing 15k+ cities, 2,200+ retail banners and 100k+ stores. In 2020 the company added more than 200 retailers and more than 15,000 store locations; by April 2021 it partnered with nearly 600 retailers across more than 45,000 stores, reaching over 85% of U.S. and 70% of Canadian households. Y Combinator lists a team size of 3,000.

Latest developments

Company news through mid-2026 includes the acquisition of Arpalus for real-time shelf intelligence (July 2026), deployment of Smart Trolleys at Morrisons Preston in the UK (July 2026), AI-powered Caper Carts with Weis Markets (June 2026), a shoppable vertical video ad feed for advertisers (June 2026), an Instacart Health partnership with Vida Health (June 2026), and a series of non-grocery delivery partnerships with Ace Hardware (May 2026), Tractor Supply (July 2026), Academy Sports + Outdoors (August 2026) and Foot Locker/Kids Foot Locker/Champs Sports (August 2026).