DoorDash is buying Instacart for $17 billion

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DoorDash is buying rival Instacart in a deal worth roughly $17 billion, signaling that the delivery wars continues to heat up.

The deal, announced Thursday, marks an end for Instacart as an independent company. Instacart went public in 2023 and benefited from a pandemic-era boom for the grocery delivery service, but it has struggled to maintain its momentum against larger competitors, like Uber, Amazon and Walmart.

DoorDash said in a press release that the combined company “will offer grocers and retailers of every size DoorDash’s delivery network and Instacart’s grocery and fulfillment technology.”

DoorDash has been expanding its suite of services beyond meal delivery, including adding restaurant reservations and delivery products beyond food, striking partnerships with Home Depot and Sephora. Now, it can increase its business with more grocery options, too.

“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,” Tony Xu, the cofounder and CEO of DoorDash said in a statement.

He added that Instacart “has spent years learning to do that well for grocers, while DoorDash has built a delivery network and technology that local stores rely on every day. Together, we could give stores of every size more of those tools and unlock the potential of grocery delivery.”

The deal is a mix of cash and stock, with DoorDash paying $65 per share, marking a roughly 25% premium from Instacart’s October 22 close when media reports said that it was mulling a sale.

The companies are touting the benefits of the combination, including that people won’t have to buy two membership programs (DashPass and Instacart+), which could save its customers an “estimated $100 million per year on membership fees alone.”

But there’s already opposition to the deal, with the American Economic Liberties Project (AELP), an anti-monopoly advocacy group, pushing regulators to block the deal because it would control nearly 60% of the third-party grocery delivery market.

“Instacart and Doordash have spent the better part of a decade bullying main street businesses and denying fair pay and benefits to their combined 9 million workers,” said Lee Hepner, Senior Legal Counsel at the AELP, in a statement. “This merger represents the next frontier of data-driven abuse, exploiting massive asymmetries of power to squeeze worker compensation on the way in and drain consumer wallets on the way out.”

The combination, which is expected to close in the coming months, is one of many in the delivery space. Grubhub’s US business was sold to Wonder for $650 million in 2025, and Uber bought European company Delivery Hero this summer for $14.8 billion. In 2020, Uber bought Postmates for $2.65 billion.

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DoorDash 以约 170 亿美元的价格收购竞争对手 Instacart，这表明外卖配送大战仍在持续升温。

这项于周四宣布的交易标志着Instacart作为一家独立公司的终结。Instacart于2023年上市，并受益于疫情期间生鲜配送服务的蓬勃发展，但面对Uber、亚马逊和沃尔玛等规模更大的竞争对手，它一直难以保持增长势头。

DoorDash 在一份新闻稿中表示，合并后的公司“将为各种规模的杂货商和零售商提供 DoorDash 的配送网络和 Instacart 的杂货和物流技术”。

DoorDash一直在拓展其服务范围，不再局限于送餐，而是增加了餐厅预订和食品以外的商品配送服务，并与家得宝和丝芙兰等零售商建立了合作关系。现在，它还可以通过提供更多杂货选择来拓展业务。

DoorDash联合创始人兼首席执行官Tony Xu在一份声明中表示：“网上杂货配送是最难做好的事情之一。必须有人挑选成熟的牛油果，找到你会选择的替代品，并在冰淇淋融化之前送到你手中。”

他还补充道，Instacart“多年来一直在学习如何为杂货商提供优质服务，而DoorDash则建立了本地商店每天都依赖的配送网络和技术。我们携手合作，可以为各种规模的商店提供更多此类工具，并释放杂货配送的潜力。”

该交易采用现金加股票的方式，DoorDash 支付每股 65 美元，比 Instacart 10 月 22 日的收盘价溢价约 25%，当时有媒体报道称 Instacart 正在考虑出售。

这些公司正在大力宣传此次合并的好处，其中包括人们不必购买两个会员计划（DashPass 和 Instacart+），这仅会员费一项，每年就能为客户节省约 1 亿美元。

但这项交易已经遭到反对，反垄断倡导组织美国经济自由项目（AELP）正在敦促监管机构阻止这项交易，因为它将控制近 60% 的第三方杂货配送市场。

“Instacart 和 Doordash 近十年来一直在欺压街头小商户，并拒绝向其合计 900 万名员工支付公平的工资和福利，”美国就业平等法律项目 (AELP) 高级法律顾问 Lee Hepner 在一份声明中表示。“此次合并代表了数据驱动型滥用行为的又一前沿，它利用巨大的权力不对称，在合并过程中压榨员工薪酬，在合并过程中榨干消费者钱包。”

预计未来几个月内完成的这笔合并案，只是外卖领域众多并购案中的一例。Grubhub的美国业务于2025年以6.5亿美元的价格出售给了Wonder，而Uber今年夏天以148亿美元收购了欧洲公司Delivery Hero。2020年，Uber以26.5亿美元收购了Postmates。