DoorDash Is in Talks to Buy Instacart for $17 Billion

The two most-used delivery apps in America are negotiating to become one company.

DoorDash is in advanced talks to acquire Instacart in a deal that would value the grocery platform at about $17 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday, citing people familiar with the matter. Reuters carried the same account the same day, The Information reported a deal could be announced within days “assuming the deal doesn’t fall apart at the last minute,” and Semafor reported the talks as exclusive. Every one of those reports carries the same warning label, and this story will too: nothing is signed, and the talks could still end with no deal at all.

Neither company is confirming anything. An Instacart spokesperson declined to comment; DoorDash did not immediately respond to requests for comment. What the companies won’t say, the stock market said for them on Monday: Instacart shares jumped roughly 8 percent while DoorDash fell about 6 percent, closing at $168.44. Investors were pricing the shape of the thing in real time — a rich payday for Instacart’s holders, a very expensive shopping trip for DoorDash.

The price of the grocery aisle

Run the numbers the Journal laid out. Before the report landed, Instacart was worth about $13 billion on the open market. Seventeen billion is a premium of more than 30 percent on top of that — DoorDash is not bidding for a bargain; it is bidding for position. And DoorDash, worth roughly $73 billion itself, would be spending close to a quarter of its own market value to get it. This is not an acquisition a company makes to shave costs. It is one it makes because it has decided what the next decade of delivery looks like and doesn’t intend to watch someone else own it.

How we got here in four days

This moved fast. On Friday, The Information reported Instacart was exploring a sale and had held preliminary discussions with both Uber and DoorDash — Instacart’s stock closed about 9 percent higher that day on the possibility alone. By Monday, according to the Journal, the Uber track was dead and DoorDash was the last suitor standing, in talks advanced enough that a deal could be finalized as soon as this week.

The two companies have stood in this exact doorway before. In 2021, DoorDash and Instacart talked about a combination valued at $40 to $50 billion; those talks fell apart amid doubts about price and antitrust approval. Five years on, the price is a third of what it was and the strategic logic is stronger — which tells you something about how much the ground has shifted under grocery delivery since the pandemic boom faded. DoorDash, meanwhile, has been buying its way outward: it closed its acquisition of Britain’s Deliveroo in 2025, and it has spent years pushing past restaurant delivery into groceries, convenience and retail partners like Macy’s, CVS and Target.

What each side is actually buying

DoorDash owns the restaurant run. Instacart owns the grocery cart — the relationships with the supermarket chains, by the company’s own count some 2,200 retailers covering nearly 100,000 stores, plus the shoppers who know the aisles. Fold them together and one company controls both halves of how a household eats: the Friday-night takeout and the Sunday grocery haul, in the same app, on the same membership, with the same fleet of drivers and shoppers.

The quieter prize is Instacart’s advertising business. Grocery brands pay Instacart for placement in front of shoppers at the exact moment they’re buying — a high-margin business that has nothing to do with delivery fees and everything to do with owning the digital shelf. Analysts at Reuters’ Breakingviews, weighing the deal Tuesday, called the strategic logic real and the cost-cutting obvious, while warning the returns look “mealy” at this price.

And then there’s who the combined company would be standing against. Walmart and Amazon are both expanding their own same-day grocery machines, and they are the two competitors neither DoorDash nor Instacart can out-muscle alone. A merged DoorDash–Instacart is the only independent delivery platform anywhere near that scale. That is the case for the deal. It is also, not coincidentally, the case regulators will read.

The Washington problem

A transaction this size “would likely draw scrutiny from antitrust regulators” — that’s the phrasing in the early coverage, and it’s an understatement with history behind it. The 2021 version of this pairing died partly on exactly this fear. Two of the largest delivery platforms in the country, operating in the same metro markets, proposing to become one company: if a deal is signed, expect a long regulatory review before a single thing changes in either app. “Talks” to “closed” is measured in seasons, not days, even when both boards say yes.

The News Desk’s read: Nothing changes this week — there is no deal. But if one lands, here’s where a normal household would feel it:

• One membership instead of two. DashPass and Instacart+ are separate subscriptions today. A combined company has every reason to fold them into one — which could mean one fee covering dinner and groceries, or one company setting both prices.
• One app for the whole week of eating. The takeout order and the grocery order already live on your home screen side by side. Under one owner, the line between them blurs — your restaurant app starts selling you milk, and means it.
• Fees are where consolidation shows up. Two rivals bidding for your order is one of the few forces keeping delivery fees honest. One less rival rarely pushes prices in the customer’s favor — which is precisely the argument regulators will be handed.
• Two gig workforces, one boss. DoorDash’s drivers and Instacart’s shoppers would answer to the same company. What that does to pay, batching and scheduling is unwritten — and worth watching, because it’s where these mergers land on actual people first.

The view from Las Vegas

In this valley, the merger wouldn’t be an abstraction. Smith’s — the grocery chain most of Las Vegas actually shops — runs its online grocery pickup and delivery through Instacart. Albertsons and Vons tested Instacart-powered pickup in Las Vegas years ago. DoorDash, meanwhile, is the default tap for restaurant delivery from the Strip to Summerlin. If this deal closes, the company delivering a Smith’s grocery order to a Henderson doorstep and the company delivering a late-night order to a condo on the Strip would be the same company — one app holding both halves of how this city eats at home.

What happens next

The reports agree on the timeline and the uncertainty: an announcement is possible as soon as this week — some reporting points to within days — and a collapse is possible at any point before signatures. If a deal is signed, the story moves to Washington for a regulatory fight that will take far longer than the negotiation did. Previously will update this story the moment the state of the talks changes: signed, dead, or repriced.

Status as of publication: advanced/exclusive talks reported by the Wall Street Journal, Reuters, The Information and Semafor. No definitive agreement announced. Instacart declined to comment; DoorDash did not immediately respond.