(Bloomberg) — Instacart Inc., the largest online grocery delivery platform in the US, said it confidentially filed documents for an initial public offering.
The San Francisco-based company didn’t disclose details of its IPO plans in a statement Wednesday confirming an earlier report by Bloomberg News.
A listing could happen as soon as this year though the timing could slip, said people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified discussing private information. The deliberations are ongoing and the company could still remain private, they said.
Instacart is working with banks including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. on an offering, said the people, who added that other banks may be included later. A representative for Goldman Sachs didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for JPMorgan declined to comment.
A beneficiary of the coronavirus pandemic, Instacart’s pace of growth has decelerated. It announced in March that it was cutting its valuation about 40% to $24 billion, Bloomberg News reported. The company was previously valued at $39 billion in a March 2021 funding round that included Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital and D1 Capital Partners, as well as Fidelity Management & Research Co. and T. Rowe Price Associates Inc.
Instacart’s public debut could come at a turbulent time in the stock market. Only two IPOs of more than $500 million have priced this year in the US. Excluding blank-check firms, 52 companies have raised $4.4 billion this year, compared with 201 listings for a total of more than $71 billion during the same period in 2021, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The performance of those newly public companies generally has been disappointing. The Renaissance IPO ETF is down 48% in the past year.
Instacart has undergone a series of management changes. Joining in the past 18 months were: Chief Executive Officer Fidji Simo, a former executive at Meta Platforms Inc.; Chief Financial Officer Nick Giovanni, a former Goldman Sachs banker; and Chief Operating Officer Asha Sharma, also a Meta veteran.
The company’s former president, Carolyn Everson, stepped down in December.
(Updates with statement in second paragraph. One of the banks was corrected in an earlier version of this story.)
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