Upscale grocery chain Whole Foods made a strategic investment in US-based shopping service provider Instacart earlier this year, Bloomberg has reported, citing people familiar with the transaction.
Private stock market operator Equidate placed the size of the total equity authorisation at about $36m based on a regulatory filing. The capital will be added to the $220m in series C funding Instacart closed in January 2015, and was invested at the same $2bn valuation.
Instacart operates a service enabling users to get their shopping done for them, with groceries delivered in as little as an hour.
Whole Foods formed a partnership with Instacart in 2014 that is now present in more than 25 US cities, allowing customers to order goods through Whole Foods’ website and have them delivered by Instacart shoppers.
The investment comes after $275m in funding raised by Instacart. Venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers led the 2015 round, which included mass media company Comcast’s corporate venturing unit, Comcast Ventures.
Other series C investors include Dragoneer Investment Group, Thrive Capital, Valiant Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Khosla Ventures and Sequoia Capital.
Instacart secured $44m in series B funding from American Express Ventures, the corporate venturing arm of payment services firm American Express, as well as Canaan Partners, Khosla Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Sam Altman and Aaron Levie, in 2014 at a $400m valuation.