February 7, 2025

Instacart-How a man went from zero to a billionaire at 33

instacart

Introduction

Apoorva Mehta of Instacart, the man that went from zero to a billionaire at 33, through hard work and persistence.

Apoorva Mehta is an Indian Canadian, born in the year 1986 in India. His parents relocated to Libya when he was very young. He spent most of his childhood in Libya.

Then at the age of 14, his parents relocated again, this time to Hamilton, Ontario Canada.

History of Instacart

At a young age, Apoorva was always curious about how many things work.

Because of this level of curiosity he had, he wasn’t sure about what he wanted to become after high school.

He later decided to become an electrical engineer, so he registered for electrical engineering at the University of Waterloo, Ontario Canada.

After he graduated, he worked in a number of technological giant companies including Blackberry, which he worked for as a design engineer before he then moved to another tech giant, Qualcomm, also as an engineer.

The experience he gathered while working in these companies gave him some insights into how large businesses operate.

After he left Qualcomm, Apoorva joined the marketplace giant, Amazon, working in the fulfillment optimization division of the company as a supply chain engineer.

He worked on the company’s fulfillment engine to help increase the speed of delivery and also the efficiency of the deliveries for customers.

He resigned from Amazon in 2010 after just two years of working for the company because he felt he wasn’t being challenged and he also wanted to start his own business as that has always been his dream.

After his departure from Amazon, he spent 2 years founding startup companies.

First, he built an ad network for social gaming companies and it failed.

Then, he spent about a year building a social network for attorneys and he failed woefully.

Being the curious person he was, he had always liked to put himself in positions that makes him learn about an industry and tried to bring up solutions to their pain points.

Apoorva estimated that he failed at least 20 startups before coming up with Instacart.

After failing in all those startups, he realized that the common factor about his failures wasn’t the fact that products did not work.

It was that he and most people did not care about these products.

He then turned his attention to the pain points of regular everyday life activities.

He used himself as a key reference.

He resided in San Francisco and did not have a car.

He really enjoyed cooking meals but had difficulties getting the groceries he wanted close to his home.

It was 2012 and every industry was beginning their online switch, from meetings to shopping and even watching movies, companies were moving their presence online.

But in all these nobody did grocery shopping online.

At that moment he knew he has hit a major idea.

Less than a month later, he coded a basic version of an app for people who wanted groceries and for those who wanted to shop for the customer.

At the beginning of this app’s journey, Mehta had to go to the store himself and also do the delivery of the groceries.

During Mehta’s research, he found out he wasn’t the first person to try the idea.

He found out that HomeGrocer and Webvan had tried this idea and failed, but that didn’t stop the determined Mehta, as he felt that his timing was right compared to the two companies who came up with the idea in the early 2000s when the population of people who had smartphones were relatively low to zero.

It was 2012 and almost everyone had smartphones and was also comfortable with using apps for transactions.

He went ahead to participate in Y Combinator’s summer 2012 batch, an American technology startup accelerator.

Through this program, Instacart was created.

Instacart Launching

The company then launched in San Francisco.

In 2013, Apoorva was on the Forbes 30 under 30 list.

By the month of April 2015, the company had approximately 200 employees.

It then introduced a new policy in June of that year, allowing shoppers to choose to be part-time employees.

This policy started in Chicago and Boston, then expanded to shoppers in Atlanta, Miami and Washington D.C., the next month.

By September 2016, the company made known to the public, its plans to expand its zone on the northern side of Chicago.

In October of that year the plan for expansion covered areas In Orange County, California and Minneapolis.

The company removed the option to leave a gratuity for the shopper but it received backlash from customers and they reinstated the option just weeks after, with modifications.

These modifications placed the tip under the service fee section on an entirely separate page.

So, in 2017, Instacart raised 400 million dollars in funding.

This put them at a valuation of 3.4 billion dollars.

By November of that same year, the company announced its partnership with Loblaw companies to start delivery from selected locations in Toronto and Vancouver, making the company gain ground in Canada.

In January 2018, the company purchased Unata, a Toronto-based white-label platform for grocers for the sum of 65 million dollars.

By midyear, Instacart was available in 11 Canadian markets and was planning to move to 5 more markets.

Later in the year, the company raised 200 million dollars in a funding round with Coatue Management being the lead investor.

The company’s valuation later rose to 4.2 billion dollars.

October saw the company raise another 600 million dollars with the lead investor being the hedge fund company, D1 Capital Partners.

The valuation of the company after the funding round became 7.6 Billion dollars.

By the fall of the same year, the company announced expansions nationally with retailers including Walmart, Canada stores, Staples Canada, M&M Food Market, Kroger, Aldi, Sam’s Club, Publix and Costco.

The company also announced the Instacart pickup’s national expansion.

Instacart pickup is a grocery click-and-collect service whereby users pick up their prepackaged orders at the grocery store.

At the end of 2018, the company raised another 271 million dollars from the funding round, bringing the total fund raised that year to a sum of 871 million dollars and a valuation of 7.87 billion dollars.

In the month of February 2019, the company made their intentions known to the public that it would review its pay system and give back pay to some workers.

Following the review, tips were no longer factored into the minimum base wages which were now set at 7-10 dollars for full-service shopping and 5 dollars for delivery-only.

The next month, same-day alcohol delivery expanded to the U.S.

In May, Whole Foods Market under the new administration of Amazon ended its partnership with the company.

By the end of the year, the company’s alcohol delivery service had gained over 30 new partners in more than 20 states and Washington D.C.

During the pandemic in 2020 there was a 218% rise in the download of the Instacart application as social distancing measures increased.

The company introduced new features to help promote safety during the pandemic such as contactless delivery, safety kits and guidelines for shoppers.

They also employed extra workers to meet up with the demands for groceries.

It also introduced pay for workers that were affected by the virus.

By May the company began partnering with Rite Aid, offering services across 2400 locations in 18 states.

In August the company partnered with Walmart U.S. to offer same-day delivery services.

The partnership began in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego and Tulsa.

The company also partnered with C&S wholesale grocers and Staples in June.

In October, the company raised 200 million dollars with a valuation of 17.7 billion dollars in a financing round led by Valiant Capital and D1 Capital Partners.

Early 2021, Instacart announced that it will provide a stipend for financial assistance for workers who wanted to get the covid vaccine.

In March 2021, Instacart raised 265 million dollars at a valuation of 39 billion dollars but the valuation dropped by almost 40% to 24 billion dollars by the march of the next year.

By February 2022 Instacart teamed up with Delta to enable clients to earn miles by linking their Skymiles and Instacart accounts.

The companies also introduced a special earning bonus for Instacart-plus members. 

Instacart also partnered with Tik Tok, Hearst Magazine and Tasty to launch Shoppable recipes with new product integration that allows users to sell their recipes on Instacart.

The company also launched the Instacart platform with services for retailers.

The platform has features for advertising, home delivery and inventory counting.

In May 2022, Instacart submitted confidential filings to go public.

On July 18th Fidji Simo became the C.E.O of Instacart while Apoorva became the Executive chairman of the board.

As of the time of recording this video, the company has a revenue of 1.8 billion dollars, an employee strength of 3000 and has its headquarters in San Francisco, California.

With Apoorva Mehta’s 10% equity in Instacart, Apoorva Mehta is worth more than 2.3 million dollars.

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