The Scoop
DoorDash is in exclusive talks to acquire Instacart, according to people familiar with the matter.
A deal is far from certain and the talks could fall apart, the people cautioned. It could not be determined what price was under discussion or how a deal would be structured.
Instacart declined to comment. DoorDash did not immediately return a request for comment. Instacart’s sale process was first reported by the Information. The Information also reported that Uber was interested in a deal for Instacart, but Bloomberg later reported that that interest had cooled.
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A combination would create a home-delivery giant, fusing Instacart’s grocery-store centric platform with DoorDash’s restaurant-focused one. DoorDash previously bid for Instacart in 2021, but at a significantly higher valuation. Those talks collapsed over price and worries about antitrust pushback, neither of which hold true today. Instacart has a valuation of roughly $12 billion, but at a conservative premium would likely fetch around $15 billion. DoorDash has a market capitalization of roughly $75 billion.
The grocery and home delivery space faces stiff competition chiefly from Amazon and Walmart, which has pressured conventional grocers for years.
The companies would likely not face antitrust issues as well: the Trump administration has taken a light-touch approach to other mergers, including a mammoth combination between Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount. But dealmakers expect that window to close, or at least shift, if Democrats succeed at the ballot box next month: senior Democrats have already said they will look to probe antitrust approvals and closed deals.