DoorDash to acquire Instacart for $17 billion in major grocery delivery consolidation
The deal gives DoorDash's customers access to 50,000 more stores and positions the delivery giant to better compete with Amazon and Walmart — but regulators are already watching.
DoorDash announced on Thursday that it will acquire Instacart — the grocery delivery specialist it has spent years outcompeting — for approximately $17 billion, a deal that would unite the dominant U.S. food delivery app with the platform that built its business around picking ripe avocados and keeping ice cream frozen in transit.
DoorDash will pay $65 per share, a 26% premium to Instacart's closing price on October 22, the last trading day before media reports surfaced about a possible sale. The payment will be in cash and stock, financed through cash on hand and debt from JPMorgan Chase. DoorDash said it is targeting a debt structure that maintains investment-grade ratings.
The merger is expected to close toward the end of 2027 or in the first half of 2028, pending shareholder approval and regulatory reviews in the U.S., Canada, and Israel. Until then, the companies will operate separately. After closing, DoorDash says it will keep Instacart's brand, app, and enterprise technology intact.
Grocery is one of the hardest things to get right online. Someone has to pick a ripe avocado, find a substitute you’d choose yourself, and get the ice cream to you before it melts. Together, we could give stores of every size more of those tools and unlock the potential of grocery delivery.— Tony Xu, co-founder and CEO, DoorDash
For consumers, the most immediate promised benefit is reach: Instacart's nearly 100,000 stores would grow to more than 150,000 once DoorDash's network is folded in. Instacart's 600,000 independent-contractor shoppers will continue fulfilling Instacart orders, and grocers will be able to choose whether to work with Instacart, DoorDash, or both.
The deal reflects a stark shift in market power. Five years ago, Instacart commanded 26% of spending on U.S. delivery platforms; that share has since fallen to 18%, according to Consumer Edge. DoorDash's share grew from 44% to 59% over the same period. DoorDash already holds nearly 61% of the food delivery market by the end of 2024, ahead of Uber Eats at around 26% and Grubhub at roughly 6%, also according to Consumer Edge.
Instacart, founded in 2012 and known on stock markets as Maplebear Inc., went public in 2023 after a pandemic-era surge in demand. But the post-pandemic landscape proved punishing: rivals DoorDash and Uber diversified aggressively into grocery delivery, eroding Instacart's core advantage. DoorDash began grocery delivery in 2020, partnered with Kroger in 2022, expanded to Kroger's full 2,700-store U.S. inventory last fall, and added Costco delivery just last month.
DoorDash itself has been on a broader acquisition run. It completed its purchase of U.K.-based Deliveroo last year, bought hospitality tech company SevenRooms and ad-tech firm Symbiosys, and agreed in September to acquire the campus dining business of Grubhub. The Instacart deal is by far the largest.
The announcement came shortly after DoorDash released its third-quarter financial results, which showed revenue growing 34% from a year ago and total orders rising 28%, according to CBS News.
The deal also lands under immediate regulatory scrutiny. The Federal Trade Commission said on Thursday it has opened a probe into DoorDash and Instacart, along with seven other companies across retail and transportation, to examine how they set prices — a separate inquiry from merger review, but a signal that both companies are under a government microscope. The FTC probe follows a months-long investigation by the advocacy group Groundwork Collaborative, which found that identical grocery items on Instacart could differ in price by as much as 23% from one customer to the next, according to CBS News.
One unresolved question is what happens to Instacart's partnership with Walmart. Instacart currently offers Walmart delivery, but DoorDash stopped providing Walmart delivery in 2022, according to The Guardian. The companies have not said how that conflict will be resolved.
Markets reacted asymmetrically: DoorDash shares jumped around 8% on the news, while Instacart's stock declined about 2%, according to the Financial Post.
Why it matters — A merger of the two largest U.S. grocery delivery platforms will reshape prices, store access, and competition for the roughly 150 million Americans who now shop for groceries online — while drawing immediate scrutiny from federal regulators already probing how these companies price their services.
⚠ Not yet confirmed
- Combined memberships could save users approximately $100 million annually
- Instacart's Walmart delivery partnership will continue unchanged after the merger
- exact announcement date of October 29, 2026
- at least 75% cash payment detail
- claim that earnings were released on the same day as the acquisition announcement
Reported by theguardian.com, pbs.org, reuters.com, cbsnews.com, financialpost.com
