New funding will allow grocery delivery service Instacart to expand to more markets

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.



"We’ve proven out our model in 10 cities across the U.S., and it works,” company founder and CEO Apoorva Mehta Mehta said in a press release. “Instacart’s customer base in every city is growing by double digits monthly, and we’ve developed a great playbook for geographic expansions. This funding will enable us to expand even more quickly and establish a wide, national footprint over the next 18 months.”



The new funding brings Instacart’s total to about $55 million since it was founded in 2012.



“As we think about the future of e-commerce, groceries are among the last huge untapped opportunities. While many have tried to crack the code, few have met with success,” said Jeff Jordan, partner at Andreessen Horowitz. "However, mobile is enabling a new way to tackle digital grocery distribution through an execution that I refer to as 'People Marketplaces.' This is Instacart's approach, and we're betting it will be the winning play. We are excited to partner with Apoorva and team as they seek to have software eat grocery delivery.”