DoorDash will pay $17 billion for Instacart. That's $65 a share, a 26% premium to the October 22 close.
The goal is simple. One app for the burrito. One app for the broccoli you buy to feel better about the burrito.
You will not eat the broccoli.
The companies promise 50,000 more stores for Instacart customers. Nobody asked for this. Nobody lay awake thinking, "My nearly 100,000 stores are not enough." Yet here we are, with 150,000, and you still order from the same gas station.
They will also merge the memberships. DashPass and Instacart+ become one fee. This is what corporate America calls savings. You will pay one subscription instead of two, then forget to cancel both anyway.
DoorDash stock rose more than 5%. Instacart fell 1.5% on a day it was being bought at a premium. Think about that. Someone paid 26% over the old price and the stock still drooped. Instacart shareholders just got proposed to and responded with a sigh.
Antitrust regulators may object. Analysts say the overlap could draw scrutiny. DoorDash tried this in 2021 and walked away over price and regulatory worries. Now it's back, with 75% of the bill in cash and a debt financing plan. Brave. Like asking an ex to dinner, but with a bond offering.
Uber reportedly looked at Instacart too, then walked away. Uber passed on the one thing it could have bought to remind itself it delivers groceries. Somewhere, a Travis Kalanick portrait is weeping into a bag of kale.
Retail traders will call this a "synergy play." They will draw a triangle on a chart and announce the breakout. The triangle was not consulted. The triangle has never ordered anything.
DoorDash keeps the Instacart brand and app. Preserved, like a mascot at a company that fired everyone who liked it.
Chris Rogers, Instacart's CEO, says the deal means an even better experience for customers and shoppers. It's a nice sentiment. The shoppers will still be in your cereal aisle, choosing your bananas with the care of a man defusing a bomb.
Seventeen billion dollars. You will still get the wrong avocados.
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