Instacart ends eventful 2018 with Whole Foods breakup

Grocery delivery company Instacart has announced in a Medium post that it is in the process of ending its partnership with Amazon-owned Whole Foods, with plans to eventually phase out customers' ability to order from the organic grocer through Instacart's app or website.

Instacart, which currently has 1,415 in-store shoppers over 76 Whole Foods locations, will begin winding down the partnership as soon as February 10, when 243 Whole Foods shoppers will stop their deliveries. The company expects to place more than 75% of impacted Whole Foods shoppers in new positions at other retailers and will continue to work with grocers including Albertsons, Kroger and Publix. Reports indicate that the company may pursue an IPO sometime in the future.

This year has been a busy one for Instacart, which has raised more than $1 billion in VC funding and attained a reported valuation of $7.8 billion. The startup has also made some key hires, including Mark Schaaf as chief technology officer, David Hahn as chief product officer and Dani Dudeck as chief communications officer.

Instacart was founded by Apoorva Mehta in 2012, after he reportedly failed to create 20 previous startups. Two years later, the company began delivering groceries for Whole Foods, which was itself acquired by Amazon in 2017 in a $13.7 billion deal.

In November, the San Francisco-based company raised $271 million from investors including Tiger Global, per Reuters, adding to the $600 million it had raised the month prior in a round led by D1 Capital Partners, and solidifying its spot on the list of the most valuable VC-backed companies in the US. Instacart's other VC backers include Andreessen Horowitz, Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia and Coatue Management.

Here's a look at Instacart's VC funding and valuation history, per the PitchBook Platform:

• April 2013: $10.8M round | $25.41M valuation
• June 2014: $44M | $380M
• Dec. 2014: $220M | $1.96B
• March 2017: $413M | $3.41B
• April 2018: $350M | $4.35B
• Nov. 2018: $871M* | $7.8B*

*estimated