Fidji Simo, chief executive officer of Instacart Inc., speaks during a Bloomberg Studio 1.0 interview in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Thursday, March 3, 2022.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Instacart, the grocery-delivery company that saw its business boom during the pandemic, priced its long-awaited IPO at $30 a share on Monday, and will become the first notable venture-backed tech company to hit the U.S. public market since December 2021.
The offering came in at the top end of the expected range of $28 to $30 a share, and values Instacart at about $10 billion on a fully diluted basis.There were 22 million shares sold in the initial public offering, with 14.1 million coming from the company and 7.9 million from existing shareholders. The stock is set to debut on the Nasdaq Stock Market on Tuesday under ticker symbol “CART.”
The 11-year-old company, which delivers groceries from chains including Kroger, Costco and Wegmans, had to drop its stock price dramatically to make it appealing for public market investors. In early 2021, at the height of the Covid pandemic, Instacart raised money at a $39 billion valuation, or $125 a share, from prominent venture firms like Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz, along with big asset managers Fidelity and T. Rowe Price.
The tech IPO market has been largely shuttered since December 2021, as inflationary pressures and rising interest rates pushed investors out of risk and led to a plunge in the prices of internet and software stocks. Instacart’s performance, along with the upcoming debut of cloud software vendor Klaviyo, could help determine if other billion-dollar-plus companies in the pipeline are willing to test the waters.
Instacart has sacrificed growth for profitability, proving in the process that its business model can generate earnings. Revenue increased 15% in the second quarter to $716 million, down from growth of 40% in the year-earlier period and about 600% in the early months of the pandemic. The company reduced headcount in mid-2022 and lowered costs associated with customer and shopper support.
Instacart started generating earnings in the second quarter of 2022, and in the latest quarter reported $114 million in net income, up from $8 million a year prior.
At $10 billion, Instacart will be valued at about 3.5 times annual revenue. Food-delivery provider DoorDash, which Instacart names as a competitor in its prospectus, trades at 4.25 times revenue. DoorDash’s revenue in the latest quarter grew faster, at 33%, but the company is still losing money. Uber’s stock trades for less than 3 times revenue. The ride-sharing company’s Uber Eats business is also named as an Instacart competitor.
The bulk of Instacart’s competition is coming from Amazon as well as big brick-and-mortar retailers, like Target and Walmart, which have their own delivery services. Target acquired Shipt in 2017 for $550 million.
Sequoia is Instacart’s biggest investor, with a fully diluted stake of 15%. While the Silicon Valley firm is sitting on a paper profit of over $1 billion on its total investment, the $50 million in shares it purchased in 2021 are now worth about one-quarter that amount.
Instacart co-founder Apoorva Mehta owns shares worth over $800 million, and is selling a small portion of them in the IPO. Mehta has been executive chair since the company appointed ex-Facebook executive Fidji Simo as his successor as CEO in 2021. Mehta is resigning from the board in conjunction with the IPO, and Simo is assuming the role of chair.
Only about 8% of Instacart’s outstanding shares were floated in the offering, with 36% of those sold coming from existing shareholders. The company said co-founders Brandon Leonardo and Maxwell Mullen are each selling 1.5 million, while Mehta is selling 700,000. Former employees, including those who were in executive roles as well as in product and engineering, are selling a combined 3.2 million shares.
Amazon’s new MK30 Prime Air drone is displayed during Amazon’s “Delivering the Future” event at the company’s BFI1 Fulfillment Center, Robotics Research and Development Hub in Sumner, Washington on Oct. 18, 2023.
Jason Redmond | AFP | Getty Images
Amazon is facing a federal probe after one of its delivery drones downed an internet cable in central Texas last week.
The probe comes as Amazon vies to expand drone deliveries to more pockets of the U.S., more than a decade after it first conceived the aerial distribution program, and faces stiffer competition from Walmart, which has also begun drone deliveries.
The incident occurred on Nov. 18 around 12:45 p.m. Central in Waco, Texas. After dropping off a package, one of Amazon’s MK30 drones was ascending out of a customer’s yard when one of its six propellers got tangled in a nearby internet cable, according to a video of the incident viewed and verified by CNBC.
The video shows the Amazon drone shearing the wire line. The drone’s motor then appeared to shut off and the aircraft landed itself, with its propellers windmilling slightly on the way down, the video shows. The drone appeared to remain in tact beyond some damage to one of its propellers.
The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the incident, a spokesperson confirmed. The National Transportation Safety Board said the agency is aware of the incident but has not opened a probe into the matter.
Amazon confirmed the incident to CNBC, saying that after clipping the internet cable, the drone performed a “safe contingent landing,” referring to the process that allows its drones to land safely in unexpected conditions.
“There were no injuries or widespread internet service outages. We’ve paid for the cable line’s repair for the customer and have apologized for the inconvenience this caused them,” an Amazon spokesperson told CNBC, noting that the drone had completed its package delivery.
The incident comes after federal investigators last month opened a separate probe into a crash involving two of Amazon’s Prime Air drones in Arizona. The two aircrafts collided with a construction crane in Tolleson, a city west of Phoenix, prompting Amazon to temporarily halt drone deliveries in the area.
For over a decade, Amazon has been working to realize founder Jeff Bezos’ vision of drones whizzing toothpaste, books and other goods to customers’ doorsteps in 30 minutes or less. The company began drone deliveries in 2022 in College Station, Texas, and Lockeford, California.
But progress has been slowed by a mix of regulatory hurdles, missed deadlines and layoffs in 2023 that coincided with broader cost-cutting efforts by Amazon CEO Andy Jassy.
The company has previously said its goal is to deliver 500 million packages by drone per year by the end of the decade.
The hexacopter-shaped MK30, the latest generation of Amazon’s Prime Air drone, is meant to be quieter, smaller and lighter than previous versions.
Amazon says the drones are equipped with a sense-and-avoid system that enables them to “detect and stay away from obstacles in the air and on the ground.” The company recommends that customers maintain “about 10 feet of open space” on their property so drones can complete deliveries
The company began drone deliveries in Waco earlier this month for customers within a certain radius of its same-day delivery site who order eligible items weighing 5 pounds or less. The drone deliveries are supposed to drop packages off in under an hour.
Amazon has brought other locations online in recent months, including Kansas City, Missouri, Pontiac, Michigan, San Antonio, Texas, and Ruskin, Florida. Amazon has also announced plans to expand drone deliveries to Richardson, Texas.
Walmart began offering drone deliveries in 2021, and currently partners with Alphabet’s Wing and venture-backed startup Zipline to make drone deliveries in a number of states, including in Texas.
Jensen Huang, chief executive officer of Nvidia Corp., during the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) sports day event in Hsinchu, Taiwan, on Saturday, Nov. 8, 2025.
Lam Yik Fei | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.
Shares of artificial intelligence czar Nvidia fell 2.6% on Tuesday as signs of unrest continued rippling through its kingdom.
Over the month, Nvidia has been contending with concerns over lofty valuations and an argument from the “The Big Short” investor Michael Burry that companies may be overestimating the lifespan of Nvidia’s chips. That accounting choice inflates profits, he alleged.
The pressure intensified last week in the form of a potential challenger to the crown. Google on Nov. 18 announced the release of its new AI model Gemini 3 — so far so good, given that Nvidia isn’t in the business of designing large language models — powered by its in-house AI chips — uh–oh.
And on Monday stateside, Meta, a potential kingmaker, appeared to signal that it is considering not just leasing Google’s custom AI chips, but also using them for its own data centers. It seemed like Nvidia felt the need to address some of those rumblings.
The chipmaker said on the social media platform X that its technology is more powerful and versatile than other types of AI chips, including the so-called ASIC chips, such as Google’s TPUs. Separately, Nvidia issued a private memo to Wall Street that disputed Burry’s allegations.
Power, whether in politics or semiconductors, requires a delicate balance.
Remaining silent may shroud those in power in a cloak of untouchability, projecting confidence in their authority — but also aloofness. Deigning to address unrest can soothe uncertainty, but also, paradoxically, signal insecurity.
For now, the crown is Nvidia’s to wear — and the weight of it is, too.
What you need to know today
And finally…
Lights on in skyscrapers and commercial buildings on the skyline of the City of London, UK, on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025. U.K. business chiefs urged Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves to ease energy costs and avoid raising the tax burden on corporate Britain as she prepares this year’s budget.
The run-up to this year’s U.K. Autumn Budget has been different from the norm because so many different tax proposals have been floated, flagged, leaked and retracted in the weeks and months leading up to Wednesday’s statement.
It has also made it harder to gauge what we’re actually going to get when Finance Minister Rachel Reeves finally unveils her spending and taxation plans for the year ahead.
Workday CEO Carl Eschenbach, right, walks to the morning session during the Allen & Co. Media and Technology Conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, on July 11, 2025.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Workday shares slid more than 5% in extended trading Tuesday after the finance and human resources software maker issued quarterly margin guidance that came in below Wall Street projections.
Here’s how the company did in comparison with LSEG consensus:
Earnings per share: $2.32 adjusted vs. $2.18 expected
Revenue: $2.43 billion vs. $2.42 billion expected
The company forecast a fourth-quarter adjusted operating margin of at least 28.5% and $2.355 billion in subscription revenue, according to a statement. The StreetAccount consensus was a 28.7% margin and $2.35 billion in subscription revenue.
Workday’s revenue grew about 13% year over year in the quarter, which ended on Oct. 31. Net income of $252 million, or 94 cents per share, was up from $193 million, or 72 cents per share, in the same quarter a year ago.
Subscription revenue in the third quarter totaled $2.24 billion, with an adjusted operating margin of 28.5%. Analysts polled by StreetAccount had anticipated $2.24 billion in subscription revenue and a 28.1% margin.
During the fiscal third quarter, Workday announced artificial intelligence agents for analyzing employee performance testing financial health, and the company revealed plans to buy AI and learning software startup Sana for $1.1 billion. Also, activist investor Elliott Management said it had built a Workday stake worth over $2 billion.
Workday has seen its stock decline this year as pundits discuss the risk of generative AI tools threatening the growth prospects for cloud software incumbents. Company shares have fallen 9% so far in 2025, while the Nasdaq Composite index has gained 19%.