Is Instacart Headed To Be America's Top Grocer? This is an excerpt from Tuesday's (3|9) Point of Sale retail supply chain newsletter sponsored by ArcBest. Instacart had a crazy year. Capped off by last week's funding announcement of another $265 million at a valuation of $39 billion (more than 4x where it was to begin 2020), Instacart has seen every piece of its business explode over the past 12 months. By some accounts, the 8-year-old company now has roughly 50% of the online grocery market. With an IPO almost guaranteed this year, I wanted to look back at how Instacart has gone from niche to necessity and question whether it can maintain this dominant position in a highly competitive, highly sought-after market post-COVID. Instacart was not Apoorva Mehta's first startup attempt. In fact, he tried his hand at more than 20 low-budget technology startups, but all either failed or eventually lost his interest. There is a story involving a lone Sriracha bottle in his empty fridge, leading to him and two of his startup friends launching Instacart to solve for quick grocery deliveries for people who, like him, lived far from supermarkets and didn't own cars.