Instacart, the US-based personal shopping service backed by payment services provider American Express, mass media group Comcast and e-commerce firm Amazon, is raising up to $250m in funding, Axios reported yesterday.
The funding will be part of a series E round, according to a securities filing seen by Axios. The company was valued at $3.4bn after its last funding, a $400m series D round led by venture capital firm Sequoia Capital in March 2017.
Instacart runs an online service where users can browse nearby stores and order grocery items to be delivered to them on the same day in return for a delivery fee. It acquired Canada-based shopping personalisation technology producer Unata last month for a figure reported by Bloomberg to be $65m.
The company raised $711m in funding prior to the latest round, including $44m in a 2014 series B featuring American Express subsidiary American Express Ventures, Sequoia, Canaan Partners, Khosla Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz and angel investors Aaron Levie and Sam Altman.
Comcast Ventures, Comcast’s corporate venturing unit, joined Sequoia, Khosla, Thrive Capital, Valiant Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), Dragoneer Investment Group, Levie and Altman for a $220m series C round the following year.
Grocery chain Whole Foods, now a subsidiary of Amazon, invested $36m in the company in 2016, before Sequoia, KPCB, Khosla, Thrive Capital, Valiant Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Wellcome Trust, Y Combinator Continuity FundersClub and Initialized Capital supplied the series D cash.
– Image courtesy of Instacart.