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The company reached a reported valuation of $11.2bn and is working on boosting its technology, but it has a way to go to reach its 2021 valuation of $39bn.
Grocery delivery platform Instacart has managed to boost its valuation thanks to its Initial Public Offering (IPO), but it is still far behind its peak.
The company’s stock price closed at $33.70 per share after its first day of trading on Nasdaq, but reached a peak of more than $41 per share at one point. The closing price values Instacart at $11.2bn on a fully diluted bases, the Financial Times reports.
It is being reported that Instacart shares surged by 43pc at their peak during this trading, but dropped back to around 12pc. The IPO is a clear boost for the company but is nowhere near its value in 2021, when a $265m funding round valued the company at $39bn.
Instacart CEO Fidji Simo said the grocery industry is undergoing a digital transformation due to consumer expectations becoming “more diverse and complex”.
“We believe the future of grocery won’t be about choosing between shopping online and in-store,” Simo said. “Most of us are going to do both. So we want to create a truly omnichannel experience that brings the best of the online shopping experience to physical stores and vice versa.”
Simo said Instacart has partnered with more than 1,400 retail banners that represent more than 85pc of the US grocery industry, while developing its own technology and e-commerce tools to support businesses.
In March, Instacart was listed among a batch of companies that had created their own plugins for ChatGPT, the popular large language model developed by OpenAI.
“At Instacart, we know technology will play a crucial part in transforming the largest retail category in the world,” Simo said. “We also know that the future of grocery should belong to the people who make it special today – and we can help them continue to innovate.”
Instacart’s IPO comes roughly one week after UK-based chip designer Arm went public, reaching a reported valuation of more than $54bn. That IPO appears to be the biggest in scale since EV automaker Rivian went public in the second half of 2021 at a whopping $70bn.
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