Bloomberg reports that Instacart "is planning an initial public offering as soon as September," and could file its plans with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as early as next week.
Some context on the financial details from the Bloomberg story:
• "In its upcoming IPO filing, Instacart will disclose new details of its finances and operations. The document will likely include only a placeholder for the terms of its offering, with the company specifying the proposed size and price of the share sale in later filings."
• "Instacart said last year that it had filed confidentially with the SEC to go public … As the market for new listings soured, Instacart decided to delay its plans. In October, Chief Executive Officer Fidji Simo wrote in a memo to staff that 'extremely tumultuous' markets made it 'highly unlikely' that an IPO would be possible that year … That had followed Instacart slashing its internal valuation to about $13 billion after reducing it earlier in the year to $24 billion.
Instacart has raised $2.74 billion as a startup and was valued in 2021 at $39 billion, according to data provider PitchBook."
- KC's View:
-
This has been a long time coming, and seems to reflect what a number of people a lot smarter than I say will be a revived IPO market after Labor Day.
I don't have a horse in this race, but I do hope it happens and is successful for the sake of many of the folks who have been working at Instacart since the beginning and definitely do have a horse in this race.
The one danger I would see is that post-IPO, Instacart starts making decisions with its shareholders as the primary concern, not shoppers and its retail clients. If it avoids that impulse, it will be in much better shape long-term.
