Retail

New York -- Instacart, the same-day grocery delivery service, has raised $44 million in a funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz.

The San Francisco startup currently operates in San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles and seven other U.S. cities. With its new funding, it Instacart expects to expand into 17 cities by the end of 2014.

Retailers are urged to provide a customer experience fit for the “digital natives” of the Millennial generation, who have grown up with constant connectivity and limitless personal choice. These all-important young consumers need to be able to buy any product on earth at any time with any electronic doodad they happen to be surfing the Net with at a given moment, or so it seems.

San Diego - Retail Opportunity Investments Corp. has completed the acquisition of Fallbrook Shopping Center, located in West Hills, California. ROIC acquired the property for $210 million in cash funded by a borrowing under its unsecured credit facility.

Pleasanton, Calif. – Safeway Inc. has entered into a memorandum of understanding to settle the consolidated class action pending in Delaware state court filed on behalf of alleged Safeway stockholders against Safeway in connection with Safeway's proposed merger with an affiliate of AB Acquisition LLC. The proposed settlement includes moving the expiration date of Safeway’s “poison pill” shareholder rights plan three months ahead to June 19, 2014.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged four Northern California residents with insider trading in Ross Stores stock options based on nonpublic information about monthly sales results leaked by one of the retailer’s employees.

New Delhi, India – Wal-Mart Stores In. has reportedly opened an e-commerce site to serve the small retailers that shop at its members-only cash-and-carry stores in India. According to Bloomberg, Wal-Mart is piloting the site for small retailers located in the cities of Hyderabad and Lucknow, with full rollout across India planned in January 2015.

New York -- In a long-awaited ruling  handed down Monday by the New York State Supreme Court, J.C. Penney have been found to have "tortiously" interfered with Macy’s 2006 contract with Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, when Penney entered into its own contract with Martha Stewart in 2011.

Rent the Runway, the popular online retailer specializing in rentals of pricey designer dresses and accessories, has opened a brick-and-mortar outpost on the second floor of The Cosmopolitan hotel’s retail complex in Las Vegas.