Instacart has become a near-ubiquitous presence in many American households, giving customers precious time back, while someone else does the grocery shopping.
While names like Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg are eminently recognizable, the founder and former CEO of Instacart is less well known. So, who owns Instacart? If you’d like to find out, keep reading!
Who Owns Instacart In [currentyear]?
Instacart is technically a subsidiary of Maplebear, Inc., of which the founder of Instacart, Apoorva Mehta, serves as the chairman of the board in [currentyear]. Instacart was founded in 2012 by Mehta, Max Mullen, and Brandon Leonardo, and is currently overseen by CEO Fidji Simo. The company was most recently valued at $39 billion.
There is so much more to learn about Instacart’s parent company, the current CEO, the history behind Instacart’s founding and so much more, so let’s dive in!
What Is the Parent Company of Instacart?
The parent company of Instacart is called Maplebear, Inc., and according to D&B Business Directory, the leadership team is the same as Instacart’s.
In fact, the address given, in San Francisco, is the same as Instacart’s corporate HQ as well.
However, Maplebear, Inc. actually oversees 12 different subsidiaries, of which Instacart is just one.
These companies are part of the general freight trucking, transportation and warehousing, local messengers, and local delivery industries.
Currently, Maplebear, Inc. employs over 7,000 people, and rakes in an estimated $950.5 million annually.
Who Is the CEO of Instacart?
The current CEO in 2022 is Fidji Simo, a French native who previously oversaw the Facebook App, and worked at eBay in the commerce and classified-advertising department.
Simo has been CEO of Instacart since July 2021, when the founder and former CEO, Apoorva Mehta, stepped down to transition to executive chairman of the board.
She hails from Sète, France, was the first person in her family to graduate from high school, and received a master’s degree in management.
When Did Instacart Start?
Instacart was founded in 2012 by Apoorva Mehta, along with Max Mullen and Brandon Leonardo.
Mehta was born in India, raised in Canada, and received an electrical engineering degree at the University of Waterloo.
From there he worked at both Blackberry and Qualcomm, before moving to Seattle to work at Amazon as a supply chain engineer.
Just two years before founding Instacart, he was the unsuccessful entrepreneur who oversaw at least 20 failed start-ups.
However, in 2012, his hard work finally gelled with an app that would revolutionize grocery shopping as we know it.
In fact, after only three years of operation, the company was valued at $2 billion.
This may be due in large part to Mehta’s incredible genius, as well as his tenacity.
This is on display in an article by the Business Journals, which recounts how Mehta missed the deadline for a funding application with YCombinator.
Rather than give up, he got in contact with YCombinator leadership, one of whom told him it would be “nearly impossible” for him to get in now.
That “nearly” was all Mehta needed; he used his Instacart app to send the partner a six-pack of beer. He got the meeting and, a few hours after, the funding.
In 2020, Mehta became a billionaire at the age of 33, and now holds a 10 percent stake in his company.
Where many have tried, only Mehta and Instacart have succeeded to such a note-worthy extent; between 2020 and 2021, the valuation of Instacart doubled to $39 billion.
Why Was Instacart Started?
Apoorva Mehta, the founder of Instacart, stated that he developed the Instacart app because he himself disliked grocery shopping.
Living in San Francisco, without access to a car (he is an avid biker), he no doubt had a difficult time getting to the store and getting the groceries home.
The Los Angeles Times reports, “As soon as he came up with the idea for an on-demand grocery delivery platform, he couldn’t stop thinking about it.”
Mehta coded the initial app himself, and without any shoppers yet, performed the test run himself, too.
What’s interesting is how the problem that Instacart solves pivoted at some point.
Initially, Mehta saw Instacart as a solution for grocery transport in a city with lots of pedestrian traffic.
Mehta clearly saw how Instacart could meet the needs of non-access-limited households- by saving them time.
In fact, after you place an order on the app, a screen pops up that tells you how many hours you have saved shopping with Instacart.
Is Instacart Public or Private?
Instacart is still a private company, so it is not yet possible to purchase its stock.
However, Finance Buzz reports that the company is expected to go public in 2022.
That same site also lists a number of reasons why Instacart stock could be quite valuable if the company does go public.
The writer highlights Instacart’s value to the economy, as well as its robust network of partnerships, with other 500 different retailers across the U.S.
Finally, Finance Buzz points to Instacart as having the makings of a sustainable company, thanks to its forward-thinking approach to change and innovation.
Instacart hasn’t gone public yet, but if it does – whether in 2022 or beyond – there are plenty of compelling reasons to try and get a piece of the pie.
Is Instacart a Reputable Company?
Instacart is generally a reputable company, having been founded and in operation for over a decade.
As mentioned above, Instacart also partners with hundreds of other legitimate, big-name retailers, like Target, Sam’s Club, Kroger, Aldi, and plenty more.
The company maintains hundreds of thousands of shoppers all across the U.S. and Canada.
Some work as in-store shoppers and Instacart employees, with access to benefits. Full-service shoppers, who both shop and deliver, are considered independent contractors.
The conversation in the U.S. concerning the gig economy and a whole generation of contract workers has raised some pivotal questions about their treatment.
Instacart did in fact join with rideshare giants Lyft and Uber to pass state legislation in California, that would override a bill which designated contract workers as employees.
Instacart has also handled unionization by its employees in the past.
Vice reported that in 2020, when Chicago employees ran a union drive, the company deployed union-busting measures to get people to vote no.
Motherboard got a copy of the memo being circulated, which put an impossibly negative spin on union activity.
Finally, Instacart has also faced criticism over its treatment of workers during the intense unprecedented events that surfaced in 2020.
Workers alleged that the company was slow to provide protective gear and even denied sick leave while people were ill.
However, Instacart did end up providing the necessary gear, as well as bonuses to many of its shoppers, and changed the sick leave policy.
To learn more, you can also read our posts on what is Instacart, what are demo orders on Instacart, and Instacart Publix delivery.
Conclusion
While Instacart is now run by CEO Fidji Simo, a Millennial-aged French businesswoman, it was the brainchild of engineer Apoorva Mehta, who currently serves as executive of the board.
In only five years of operation, Instacart made Mehta a 33-year-old billionaire, while disrupting the grocery industry and the way Americans shop forever.
