DoorDash agrees to buy Instacart for about 17 billion dollars, joining the two biggest names in American delivery

Two apps that between them deliver a large share of America's takeout and groceries are becoming one company. DoorDash, which operates in more than 40 countries, will acquire Maplebear, the company that does business as Instacart, for 65 dollars for each Instacart share, about 17 billion dollars in total. Shareholders can elect cash, DoorDash stock, or a mix of 48.75 dollars in cash and a fraction of a DoorDash share, with the stock portion capped at 25 percent of the whole deal. The price is a 26 percent premium to where Instacart closed on October 22, the last trading day before media reports said a transaction was coming. Instacart had also held talks with Uber, CNBC reported, before the DoorDash deal was set.

The logic the two companies gave is about the stores, not the apps. Instacart works with more than 2,200 retail banners covering nearly 100,000 stores, and it sells grocers the technology to run their own online shops, smart carts, fulfillment systems and advertising networks. DoorDash brings the delivery fleet and the customer habit, nearly a billion orders a quarter, and its own push beyond restaurants into groceries and retail. Put together, the companies say, a local grocer gets DoorDash's delivery network and Instacart's technology in both apps and on the store's own website, plus the advertising and artificial intelligence tools each side has built. Customers who hold both DashPass and Instacart Plus memberships will pay one fee instead of two, and Instacart customers gain access to more than 50,000 additional stores. The biggest online retailers, the announcement said, are building their own fleets, warehouses, memberships and AI shopping assistants, and a grocer on thin margins cannot build all of that alone.

The market is not sure the deal will survive. The transaction is not expected to close until the end of 2027 or the first half of 2028, an unusually long runway that reflects the antitrust review ahead, and Instacart's shares have traded well below the 65 dollar offer price, which is how investors price a deal they think regulators might block or delay. Joining the largest food delivery company in the country with the largest grocery delivery platform will draw exactly the scrutiny the timeline suggests. DoorDash also disclosed this week that third party AI agents generated only several hundred orders out of roughly 993 million in the quarter, a small fact that cuts both ways in the argument. The AI ordering future that both companies invoke in their pitch has not arrived yet. The stores, the drivers and the fees are what is actually being bought.