DoorDash agrees to buy Instacart in $17 billion deal

DoorDash said Thursday it has agreed to acquire rival Instacart for $17 billion, paying $65 per Instacart share in a deal approved by both companies’ boards. The combination brings DoorDash’s dominance in restaurant takeout together with Instacart’s reach in grocery delivery.

DoorDash intends to retain Instacart’s name, its enterprise-facing software and its consumer app, and the two companies will continue operating separately until the deal closes, with that closing penciled in for late 2027 or the first six months of 2028. DoorDash said the deal could help more grocers build their own online ordering and advertising businesses using Instacart’s technology, while letting them tap DoorDash’s fulfillment network for lower-cost delivery.

“Grocery is one of the hardest things to get right online,” DoorDash CEO Tony Xu said in the statement announcing the deal, framing it as a way to extend years of grocery-logistics know-how across a broader base of retailers. Instacart CEO Chris Rogers said joining forces with DoorDash lets the company build on 14 years of transforming online grocery for retailers of all sizes.

Instacart’s market value currently exceeds $13 billion, and its shares have climbed 25% so far this year — a run that may have made this a good moment to sell, ahead of intensifying competition in grocery delivery. Bloomberg had previously reported that Instacart was in talks with Uber before walking away from those discussions.

Why it matters

The deal would fuse two of the largest on-demand delivery platforms, concentrating restaurant and grocery delivery under one company and giving smaller grocers a bigger combined logistics and advertising network to plug into.