DoorDash agrees to buy Instacart for $17 billion in cash and stock deal

Three years ago, Instacart stock traded near $30. DoorDash is now paying $65 a share to fold its biggest grocery-delivery rival into its own business.

Instacart shareholders have a decision to make, and DoorDash confirmed on October 29 that it has agreed to acquire the grocery-delivery company in a deal valuing it at roughly $17 billion, according to a press release filed with the SEC. They can take $65.00 in cash per share, 0.3372 shares of DoorDash stock, or a mixed option of $48.75 cash plus 0.0843 DoorDash shares. Total stock consideration is capped at 25% of the deal.

That $65 price is a 26% premium over Instacart's closing price on October 22. It was the last trading day before reports of a possible deal leaked and sent both stocks moving.

This isn't the companies' first attempt at this. DoorDash and Instacart held similar talks back in 2021: Instacart was still private then, carrying a $39 billion valuation from its last funding round, with offers reportedly in the $40 billion to $50 billion range. Those talks fell apart over antitrust worries under the Biden administration. Instacart went public two years later anyway, debuting on the Nasdaq at a $9.9 billion valuation, less than a quarter of what investors had paid for it privately. Getting bought now, at $65 a share against an IPO price of $30, is a far better outcome for Instacart's remaining shareholders than most expected after that IPO.

Chris Rogers took over as Instacart's CEO and chairman after Fidji Simo left last year to run OpenAI's applications business. He inherits a company that still dominates its core market. Instacart controls around 70% of third-party U.S. grocery delivery, while DoorDash holds about 10%. That gap is the whole story. It explains exactly why DoorDash wants this deal and why regulators will look hard at it.

Combining the top two players in a market this concentrated invites a long look from the Federal Trade Commission. The transaction needs to clear the waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act, along with regulatory sign-off in Canada and Israel. On top of that comes a vote from Instacart shareholders. DoorDash and Instacart are reportedly not expecting to close until the end of 2027 or the first half of 2028: that timeline itself signals how much regulatory work both sides think lies ahead.

There's reason for DoorDash to be more optimistic than it was in 2021. The Trump administration has generally shown more appetite for approving large tech mergers than its predecessor did. That shift is almost certainly part of why DoorDash revived talks it had shelved five years ago. Will the FTC agree that a combined DoorDash-Instacart doesn't harm grocery shoppers or the retailers that list on both platforms? That question will decide this deal's fate, not the signatures on the merger agreement.

The market reaction told its own story before the ink dried. Instacart shares jumped roughly 8% once talks became public, while DoorDash stock dropped about 6%. That's a split verdict. It usually means investors like the price Instacart is getting and aren't sure DoorDash is getting enough in return. DoorDash's own stock has been down around 21% for the year heading into this news. A $17 billion acquisition is a big swing. The company is already under pressure to show its core delivery business can grow margins on its own.

What DoorDash actually gets, if regulators let it through, is scale against Walmart and Amazon in grocery, a category where delivery apps have struggled to turn volume into profit. Instacart's advertising business and its retailer-facing software may be worth as much to DoorDash as the delivery marketplace itself. Rogers' predecessor built those tools out specifically to diversify beyond pure delivery fees. Folding that into DoorDash's restaurant base gives it a cross-sell story. Uber has already been testing one: Instacart struck a grocery-delivery partnership with Uber Eats back in 2024, a deal that will presumably need to be unwound or renegotiated once DoorDash owns Instacart outright.

For now, the deal exists only on paper and in an SEC filing.

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