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- It’s the Smart Money That Took a 77% Loss on Instacart, Not Retail Investors
It’s the Smart Money That Took a 77% Loss on Instacart, Not Retail Investors
by Wolf Richter Wolf Street
Instacart enters my pantheon of Imploded Stocks.
Instacart – whose official name is Maplebear [CART] – is an app that pays a bunch of people to pick merchandise at grocery stores and at other retailers, and deliver the stuff to the person that ordered it on the app. You’ve seen these frazzled guys, smartphones in hand, trying to find stuff in a store they aren’t familiar with; you’ve seen them at the checkout with two separate orders that have to be rung up separately.
With the money the company raised from venture investors, it bought some other companies, and added some other activities, but that’s largely it. It’s not rocket science, but it can be profitable as long as someone is willing to pay for the service, and as long as it can find people willing to do the picking and delivering for what must be relatively little pay.