The grocery delivery company Instacart has raised $150 million in a recent round of funding. According to TechCrunch, this is in addition to the $200 million the startup raised in February 2018 when it received a 4.2 billion by valuation investors.
Founded by former Amazon employee Aproova Mehta in 2012, Instacart is an online grocery deliver service where consumers can buy groceries and have them delivered to their home. Although the company’s website is the primary platform on which groceries are purchased by consumers, it also supports purchases via Apple iOS and Google Android apps.
It’s not just clothing, electronics and other consumer products that are being purchased online. Many consumers are now buying their groceries over the internet as well. According to Statista, nearly three in 10 consumers have purchased groceries online. It eliminates the otherwise time-consuming process of driving to the local grocery store and navigating down crowded aisles. Using a computer or smartphone, consumers can order groceries from Instacart. There are still some drawbacks to buying groceries online, one of which is accesses to fewer products.
Instacart isn’t alone in the online groceries services niche. Amazon, for instance, offers a grocery delivery and pickup service for Prime members. Known as AmazonFresh, the service is available to all Prime members for an additional monthly subscription fee of $14.99. It allows Prime members to shop for a wide variety of groceries, including packaged snacks, fresh vegetables, meta, seafood, organic produce, breads and more. AmazonFresh is currently only available in select U.S. cities, however.
So, how does Instacart plan to differentiate its business from AmazonFresh? One of the key selling points of Instacart’s service is its time of delivery. The company strives to deliver all grocery orders the same day on which they are placed. If a user orders groceries Monday morning, Instacart will collect and deliver those groceries by the end of that day
Instacart also says that it has established relationships with local grocery stores throughout the country in recent years, allowing it to purchase products at discount prices. And because it’s able to save money on grocery purchases, it passes these cost-savings benefits down to its customers.
Dil Bole Oberoi
