DoorDash Buys Instacart, Puts It In A Bigger Bag

SAN FRANCISCO—DoorDash said Thursday it will buy Instacart for about $17 billion, or $65 a share, in a deal that places one app that brings you groceries inside another app that brings you groceries. Both apps will remain on your phone. Analysts described the arrangement as a bag inside a bag, which every household in America already keeps under the sink.

According to Grocery Dive, the price is a 26% premium to Instacart's closing stock price on Oct. 22, and at least 75% of it will be paid in cash. The deal is expected to close at the end of 2027 or in the first half of 2028. Until then, the two companies will operate separately, which they have been doing for years with great discipline.

DoorDash said it plans to keep Instacart's brand, its app and its enterprise technology. It also gets access to Instacart's more than 600,000 couriers and an advertising business that brought in $331 million last quarter, roughly 30% of Instacart's revenue. DoorDash's own third-quarter revenue was nearly $4.6 billion, about four times Instacart's, which is the usual ratio between a cart and the basket riding in its child seat.

I was in a cart. Now I am in a cart that is in a cart…

"I was in a cart. Now I am in a cart that is in a cart," said a fictional bag of baby spinach waiting at a pickup door in Oakland, California. "Nobody has told me which app is delivering me. I have decided to remain crisp and let the lawyers sort it out."

Who Groceries Think Is Delivering Them NowShare of fictional groceries, by best guess, the morning after the deal

Who Groceries Think Is Delivering Them Now
Unclear, will remain crisp	38%
DoorDash, probably	24%
Instacart, out of loyalty	19%
A bag, inside a bag	12%
Asked to speak to a manager	7%

Source: The Daily SKU Marketplaces Desk; 900 fictional groceries awaiting pickup, one very patient spinach

Sellers took the news calmly. A seller I trust, who has run a grocery storefront through both apps since 2020, said she will now have two dashboards that will eventually become one dashboard (seller forum, 2:14 a.m.). "I have seen this movie," she wrote. "It ends with three dashboards."

A fictional courier in San Jose who already drives for both companies said the merger changes nothing about his day except the number of times his phone congratulates him. "Now they can thank me in the same notification," he said. "I look forward to being a valued partner twice, at once."

The long timeline means shoppers have more than a year to prepare. A fictional family in Sacramento said they have started by deleting nothing. "We kept both apps," said the father. "We kept both loyalty programs. We kept the bags. We keep everything. That is how we got here."

Readers may recall that Instacart said this week it will stop offering its smart carts. The carts, reached in storage, said nobody had called them about the merger either, and that being acquired is still, technically, a way of being picked up.

Disclosure, per newsroom policy: on Thursday this reporter filed Appeal No. 43 on behalf of Okafor Vintage Calcs, attaching the merger announcement and a short note asking whether, in a world where two delivery apps can become one, a suspended calculator shop might become a shop again. The automated reply arrived in 41 seconds. It thanked him for his interest in mergers.

Instacart's board approved the deal unanimously. Instacart canceled its earnings call; DoorDash held one. The spinach is still at the pickup door, in a bag, inside a bag, and says it is fine.

Dashiell Okafor covers marketplaces, and his seller-account appeal is entering its seventh year. More from Dashiell Okafor ›