Illustration by Monica Ahanonu
Company: Instacart
Title: Chair & Chief Executive Officer
Industry: Technology
Hometown: Sète, France
Notable in 2023: Delivered Instacart to the public markets as a profitable company.
In September 2023, Instacart helped to break the longest tech IPO drought in three decades.
“There were a lot of questions about whether Instacart would be just another pandemic fad,” CEO Fidji Simo told CNBC. “And we have now proven that we not only kept the Covid gains, but grew on top of the Covid gains and grew sustainably and profitably, which is really important.”
Starting last year, profitability became a more consistent story for the largest online grocery marketplace in North America, with millions of monthly active orderers and Instacart+ members. The company says it has now delivered over one billion orders across its 85,000-store network encompassing 1,500 retail partners. In 2023, the company says it continued to increase market share among digital-first competitors: more than 50% share in small baskets ($75 and below) and more than 70% share in large baskets ($75 and above).
In addition to its core business, advertising-related revenue from its platform and deals with Google, Roku and others, has grown.
Creating is our birthright. Success, in my book, is being able to fully create using all of our talents, in a way that makes the world better in small and big ways.
Fidji Simo
Chair & Chief Executive Officer, Instacart
In recent months, Instacart has launched SNAP program benefits at Kroger and Costco, reaching more of the U.S. population, and a deal with NBCUniversal’s Peacock to offer members of its Instacart+ service an answer to Amazon Prime Video and Walmart’s deal with Paramount+.
It has also begun offering health savings account (HSA) and flexible spending account (FSA) options. Simo, who took the top role at the company in 2021 and launched the Instacart Health delivery service in 2022, has made health care a personal passion. She co-founded the Metrodora Institute, a for-profit clinic and research center dedicated to women with neuroimmune axis disorders. The organization collects data and samples from patients and partners with other biotech and academic institutions to find cures. She was inspired to start the company after her battle with a neuroimmune condition.
“Patients often go through years-long diagnostic odysseys, bouncing around from specialist to specialist with no one looking at the whole picture,” Simo wrote on her LinkedIn. “These debilitating diseases have no cures, yet are chronically underfunded and under-researched.”
While the company has come a long way in answering the doubters after the startup crash and a hefty valuation cut from its peak private market value, overall growth has slowed, the stock has not been able to sustain IPO gains, and alongside its mid-February Q4 earnings, the company announced 250 layoffs and the departure of several C-suite executives.
But after what Simo described as a “transformational year” for the company in 2023, she told investors in its recently issued annual letter that Instacart’s “critical advantages and relentless product enhancements make it incredibly hard for any other player in the industry, or any single grocer, to replicate the experience we deliver, at the competitive cost and scale we deliver it at.”
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