Maplebear Inc.

Instacart (Maplebear Inc.) operates as a leading technology and enablement partner for the grocery industry, facilitating connections and transactions among retailers, consumers, advertisers, and shoppers primarily across the United States and Canada. The company's core business model is built around a diversified revenue stream derived from transaction fees and advertising services. Instacart has powered over 1.6 billion orders since its founding, reaching over 98% of households in North America as of December 31, 2025 ¹. The company's platform aims to improve experiences for all constituents by offering convenience, selection, and affordability to customers, growth opportunities to retailers, measurable advertising for brands, and flexible earning opportunities for shoppers.

Instacart's competitive positioning is influenced by its ability to attract and retain retailers, customers, brands, and shoppers. Competition for retailers is based on technology quality, flexibility, ease of use, scalability, reliability, pricing, fulfillment capabilities, innovation, and support. For customers, competition centers on experience quality, selection, affordability, and convenience. Brands are attracted by offering breadth, technology capabilities, ease of use, data insights, consumer reach, and pricing. Shoppers are drawn by flexibility, earnings potential, safety, and overall experience. The company operates in a highly competitive and rapidly evolving market, facing competition from established online grocery platforms, brick-and-mortar retailers with their own digital offerings, e-commerce and fulfillment service providers, digital-first platforms owning inventory, and specialized delivery companies.

The core business model revolves around connecting these four key constituents. Revenue is generated through transaction fees from customers (service and delivery fees, Instacart+ memberships) and retailers (service fees for facilitating transactions, fulfillment fees for Enterprise platform orders), as well as revenue share agreements with payment card issuers. A significant portion of revenue also comes from advertising services sold to brands. The mix of recurring revenue, primarily from Instacart+ memberships and software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions, and transactional income from order-based fees and advertising, contributes to the company's financial profile. Primary customer segments include individual consumers for grocery and restaurant orders, and retailers and brands for technology and advertising solutions.

Instacart Marketplace serves as a platform where customers can shop from over 2,200 retail banners as of December 31, 2025 ² through the Instacart app or website. It supports various fulfillment options and shopping occasions, including weekly shops, bulk stock-ups, convenience, special occasions, and restaurant orders. The membership program, Instacart+, offers expanded customer benefits such as unlimited $0 delivery fees on orders over a certain size and other exclusive benefits. This segment is crucial for customer acquisition and engagement, driving overall platform activity.

Instacart Enterprise platform is an end-to-end technology solution for retailers, offering modular components that can be integrated based on their needs. Key components include e-commerce storefront technology, which powers over 380 grocers' e-commerce sites ³, fulfillment services leveraging Instacart shoppers or retailer employees, Connected Stores technologies (Caper Carts, Carrot Tags, Eversight, FoodStorm, In-Store mode, Out of Stock Insights, and Storefront) for unified online and in-store experiences, Carrot Ads for enterprise advertising, and Insights for near real-time visibility into key metrics. This platform aims to accelerate the digital transformation of retailers' businesses.

Instacart Ads provides brands with a measurable advertising offering, leveraging first-party transaction data to drive product sales. It offers various advertising solutions, including Sponsored Product ads, display ads, coupons, and brand pages, designed to deliver strong return on investment across the customer shopping journey. This segment also provides brands with valuable insights into consumer behavior. The company is expanding these capabilities to include online, off-platform, and in-store channels to broaden brand reach.

For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2025, Instacart reported total revenue of $3,742 million ⁴, an 11% increase from $3,378 million in 2024 ⁵. Gross profit reached $2,758 million ⁶, up 8% from $2,542 million in 2024 ⁷, resulting in a gross margin of 74% ⁸, a 1% decrease from 75% in 2024 ⁹. Operating income was $498 million ¹⁰, compared to $489 million in 2024 ¹¹. Net income for 2025 was $447 million ¹², a slight decrease from $457 million in 2024 ¹³. Diluted EPS was $1.60 ¹⁴, compared to $1.58 in 2024 ¹⁵. Net cash provided by operating activities was $971 million ¹⁶. As of December 31, 2025, cash and cash equivalents stood at $637 million ¹⁷, with marketable securities of $130 million ¹⁸. The company had an accumulated deficit of $4.5 billion ¹⁹.

Comparing 2025 to 2024, total revenue increased by $364 million ²⁰, or 11% ²¹. Transaction revenue grew by $257 million ²², or 11% ²³, driven by GTV growth, increased fulfillment efficiencies, and lower consumer incentives, partially offset by affordability initiatives. Advertising and other revenue increased by $106 million ²⁴, or 11% ²⁵, due to increased advertising volume, platform activity, and strength from emerging brand partners. Gross profit increased by $216 million ²⁶, or 8% ²⁷, while gross margin decreased by 1% to 74% ²⁸ as cost of revenue grew faster than revenue. Research and development expense increased by $45 million ²⁹, or 8% ³⁰, primarily due to a net increase of $51 million in total compensation costs driven by stock-based compensation expense, partially offset by lower cash compensation and a $9 million benefit from higher capitalized software development costs. Sales and marketing expense increased by $47 million ³¹, or 6% ³², mainly due to a $25 million increase in marketing costs and $11 million in consulting costs. General and administrative expense increased by $119 million ³³, or 33% ³⁴, primarily due to a $131 million increase in accruals for legal matters and sales and indirect taxes, including a $60 million settlement with the FTC ³⁵, and a $12 million increase in fixed asset impairments, partially offset by a $15 million decrease in total compensation costs.

During 2025, Instacart acquired Marlin9 Holdings, Inc., which operates as Wynshop, a provider of e-commerce retail solutions for grocers and retailers, with an acquisition cost of $106 million, net of cash acquired ³⁶. The company also entered into an accelerated share repurchase agreement on November 10, 2025, to repurchase $250 million of common stock, receiving an initial delivery of 5.4 million shares on November 12, 2025 ³⁷. Total share repurchases for the year amounted to $1.3 billion ³⁸.

Management expects continued fluctuations in GTV growth, influenced by macroeconomic conditions, changes in customer and retailer engagement, and the effects of strategic initiatives. The company's ability to generate and expand profitability is highly impacted by growth in diversified revenue streams and driving operational efficiencies. Instacart aims to sustain or increase revenue while managing costs, acknowledging that efforts to maintain and increase profitability may be challenged by evolving consumer behavior, impacts on prices from trade policies, inflationary pressures, economic recession risks, customer engagement, changes in revenue mix, and compliance costs with evolving regulatory regimes.

A major growth area for Instacart is the continued expansion and enhancement of its offerings and features. This includes new use cases (such as convenience and restaurants), fulfillment options (such as pickup and priority), and functionalities (such as flyers and loyalty programs). The company is also making strategic investments in new technologies and initiatives, including its enterprise offerings and AI Solutions. These investments are intended to improve the customer and shopper experience, drive operational efficiencies, and support inventory and customer traffic prediction.

Another significant growth vector is the continued development and scaling of Instacart Ads offerings. The company aims to attract new brands and encourage existing ones to increase their advertising spend by expanding advertising markets and surfaces, attracting new retailers and platforms, acquiring new customers, and increasing the breadth and functionality of its advertising products. This includes new advertising formats, measurement tools, and capabilities to deliver attractive return on investment for brand partners.

Operationally, Instacart expects cost of revenue, exclusive of stock-based compensation expense, to increase on an absolute dollar basis and vary as a percent of revenue as operations grow. Gross margin is expected to vary due to changes in revenue mix, order types, consumer behaviors, average order values, customer fee optimization, consumer incentives, operational efficiencies, and negotiations with partners. The company anticipates incurring additional labor costs as it expands across fulfillment options and consumer use cases. Operations and support expense, research and development expense, and general and administrative expense, exclusive of stock-based compensation, are expected to increase on an absolute dollar basis as the company invests in operations, hires additional employees, and scales internal support functions. Sales and marketing expense is also expected to increase on an absolute dollar basis as the company invests in attracting and engaging customers and increasing brand awareness.

The company plans to continue investing in its operations to scale the business and expand internationally, aiming for long-term efficiencies. This includes improving transaction processing and reporting, operational and financial systems, and controls. Investments in product development and hiring highly skilled engineering personnel are also ongoing to support efforts in machine learning models and other technological capabilities. The company's Flex First workforce model, allowing remote work, is expected to continue.

Planned capital allocation includes continued investments in research and development efforts, sales and marketing activities, and the introduction of enhancements to Instacart. The company's board of directors has authorized a share repurchase program, which was increased to $2.5 billion in November 2025 ³⁹. During 2025, the company repurchased and retired 33 million shares for an aggregate purchase price of $1.3 billion ⁴⁰. The company does not intend to pay any cash dividends on its capital stock in the foreseeable future, expecting to retain future earnings to fund business development and growth.

Management explicitly flagged several structural headwinds and execution risks. These include the potential for decreased growth rates due to macroeconomic and geopolitical conflicts, inflation, elevated interest rates, supply chain challenges, and increased competition. The company also faces risks related to its ability to cost-effectively acquire and retain customers and shoppers, manage its growth at current scale and complexity, and successfully launch new offerings. Regulatory changes, particularly regarding worker classification, are a significant concern, with Proposition 22 in California increasing costs and similar legislation potentially being adopted elsewhere. The company also highlighted the risks associated with building and scaling its Instacart Ads offerings, including potential fluctuations in advertising revenue due to brand partner spend and macroeconomic conditions.

Geographic, regulatory, and macro factors identified as constraints include the complex and changing laws and regulations in the United States and other jurisdictions, particularly those governing worker classification, privacy, data security, and AI. International expansion presents additional costs and risks, such as managing employees across diverse geographic areas, competition from local incumbents, differing employment and labor regulations, varying legal and regulatory standards, currency exchange fluctuations, and lower protection of intellectual property rights in some foreign countries. Macroeconomic and geopolitical conditions, public health incidents, and weather events are also expected to impact consumer spending, potentially leading to decreased customer retention and engagement, reduced advertising spending by brands, and increased operating costs for retailers and shoppers.

Instacart faces material risks including the highly competitive and rapidly evolving markets for retailers, customers, brands, and shoppers, with well-capitalized competitors potentially offering discounted services or developing their own platforms. Macroeconomic uncertainty, including trade policies, inflation, elevated interest rates, and recession risks, could decrease customer engagement, reduce advertising spend, and increase operating costs for partners. Regulatory changes, particularly regarding worker classification, pose significant financial and operational risks, with compliance costs increasing due to laws like Proposition 22 in California and new minimum earnings standards in New York City. Cybersecurity threats, including state-sponsored attacks, ransomware, and social engineering, could compromise sensitive data, disrupt operations, and lead to regulatory investigations, litigation, and reputational harm. Dependence on third-party payment processors, hosting providers, and mobile operating systems introduces risks of service interruptions, increased costs, and reduced functionality. The company's reliance on highly skilled personnel and its ability to maintain company culture are critical, with potential adverse impacts from employee attrition or failure to attract talent. Intellectual property disputes, including challenges to patents and trademarks, and the use of open-source software, could lead to costly litigation or limit the company's ability to offer its services. Furthermore, the company's estimates of market opportunity and forecasts of market growth may prove inaccurate, and acquisitions or strategic partnerships carry integration challenges and potential dilution risks. The company is also exposed to collection and credit risks from retailers and brands, which could negatively impact results, especially during economic downturns.

Management's overall tone emphasizes a commitment to being the leading technology and enablement partner for the grocery industry, focusing on improving experiences for all constituents: retailers, customers, brands, and shoppers. They highlight the company's diversified revenue streams and efforts to drive operational efficiencies to sustain and increase profitability. Management acknowledges the challenges of operating at its current scale and complexity in an evolving market, particularly regarding macroeconomic impacts and regulatory changes concerning shopper classification. The company is actively investing in expanding its offerings, including new features, use cases like convenience and restaurants, and advanced AI Solutions, to drive future growth and reduce costs. A key strategic priority is the continued development and scaling of Instacart Ads offerings to attract new brands and increase advertising spend. Management also stresses the importance of attracting and retaining highly skilled personnel and maintaining a strong company culture, including through its Flex First workforce model. The board of directors has authorized a substantial share repurchase program, increasing it to $2.5 billion ³⁹ in November 2025, reflecting a commitment to capital return while also reinvesting in talent, technology, and long-term endeavors to drive profitable growth. The company does not intend to pay cash dividends in the foreseeable future, prioritizing reinvestment of earnings into the business.