Company Updates

Instacart Serves, our social impact program, aims to nourish its communities by helping to remove barriers to food access and enriching the lives of our communities through an annual volunteer week of service, grocery donations, disaster relief, and giving campaigns. While we can’t gather in person to volunteer this month, today on #GivingTuesday we’re proud to kick off our #GiveFromTheCart Virtual Food Drive to support communities and families in need this holiday season. This week our Instacart team members are placing hundreds of Instacart orders of pantry staples to be delivered to several of our local partner food banks, including the Atlanta Community Food Bank, Greater Chicago Food Depository, Food Bank For New York City, SF-Marin Food Bank, and Daily Bread Food Bank in Toronto. In turn, Instacart will match every order with a 100 meal donation (up to 500,000 meals) to Feeding America and Food Banks Canada | Banques alimentaires Canada which together support more than 700 food banks across North America. As the pandemic continues, food insecurity continues to rise and food

We’re excited to welcome Christina Hall to our table! As Instacart’s first Chief Human Resources Officer, Christina brings over 20 years of people-first leadership experience to support Instacart’s next chapter of growth. “Instacart’s mission, to create a world where everyone has access to the food they love and more time to enjoy it together, is something that resonates with me deeply, especially as access to food has become more difficult for so many. I am excited to help Instacart continue to rise to the occasion, with people at the core of this success.” - Christina Hall, CHRO

"I’m proud to be unapologetically BLACK, queer, and fierce. I honor my ancestors that made a way for me to be ME with confidence and without fear. I’m proud to stand with my community to make a difference and be the change we need to see in this world." - Justin Feaster, QA Specialist 🌈 ✊🏿 🥕

We couldn’t have said it better ourselves. Thank you to our incredible Instacart shoppers for the difference you’re making in your communities. 🥕 🧡

In this interview with The Muse, our Senior Shopper Design Manager Himani Amoli shares her pro-tips for how a design candidate can nail a virtual interview and shine from behind a screen. Check it out below! ⤵️

"The South Shore neighborhood was a food desert for more than half a decade, until Local Market opened in December. [This] week, the grocery store will add delivery to its repertoire too. Local Market is partnering with Instacart to offer grocery delivery starting June 24, said Eva Jakubowski, who co-owns the store with her husband." We're excited to welcome Local Market to Instacart to serve Chicago's South Shore neighborhood. Read the full story below ⤵️

“With the home now serving as both a workplace and school for so many families across America, we’re proud to work with Staples to make it easier to adapt to this new normal and bring Staples’ wide variety of office supplies directly from the local store to the customer’s door.” - Chris Rogers, VP of Retail at Instacart Nearly all Staples US stores are now on the Instacart marketplace—get the full story in Chain Store Age below! ⤵

We’re proud to announce that Instacart has raised $225 million as part of a new financing round led by DST Global and General Catalyst, with existing investor D1 Capital Partners participating. This new fundraising increases Instacart’s valuation to $13.7 billion. The investment comes as Instacart continues to experience an unprecedented surge in customer demand for grocery delivery and pickup in North America. Overnight, Instacart has become an essential service and necessity for millions of families, and our teams stepped up to safely serve customers and shoppers in the wake of the pandemic. We’re proud to play an important role in helping feed families across North America and look forward to continuing to support customers, shoppers, and retailers for years to come. Get the full story in Bloomberg News, below ⤵️

In March, one of our key benchmarking metrics, our item "found rate" dipped by about 30%. It was a "shock to our system" according to our Director of Machine Learning, Sharath Rao. Our Machine Learning team reinvented our item availability model to predict what's on store shelves amidst bulk buying and product shortages—learn how in the full piece by Jonathan Vanian at Fortune, below!

We’re always working to make sure we offer the best possible experience for shoppers. We've made a few changes to the platform to provide more clarity around tips, confidence in the expected tip amount shoppers may receive from a customer, and faster and easier access to earnings. Read more below! ⤵️