Instacart, the US-based grocery delivery platform backed by corporates Whole Foods, American Express and Comcast, raised $400m yesterday in a series D round led by venture capital firm Sequoia.
The round included Wellcome Trust, Y Combinator’s Continuity fund, Andreessen Horowitz, FundersClub, Khosla Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), Initialized Capital, Thrive Capital and Valiant Capital.
The funding was closed at a $3.4bn valuation, people familiar with the deal told Bloomberg. The Wall Street Journal has reported that Sequoia invested $100m in the round.
Founded in 2012, Instacart has built an app that enables members to shop for items from a range of local stores that are then delivered to them by contractors.
The company has expanded from 18 to 35 markets since January 2016, according to a blog post on Medium, and it plans to grow that figure to 60 by the end of this year.
Instacart has now raised approximately $711m in funding, its last cash influx having come when grocery chain and strategic partner Whole Foods invested $36m at the same $2bn valuation at which the company secured $220m in series C financing at the start of 2015.
KPCB led the series C, investing alongside Comcast Ventures, mass media group Comcast’s VC arm, as well as Sequoia, Thrive Capital, Valiant Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Khosla Ventures, Dragoneer Investment Group and angel investors Aaron Levie and Sam Altman.
American Express Ventures, the corporate venturing vehicle for payment services provider American Express, had taken part in Instacart’s $44m series B round in 2014.
The series B, which was closed at a $400m valuation, also featured Sequoia, Canaan Partners, Khosla Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Altman and Levie.
– Photo courtesy of Instacart