The news: DoorDash agreed to acquire Instacart for roughly $17 billion. The deal marks a seismic shift in the online delivery industry, bringing together the largest US restaurant delivery platform and the dominant grocery delivery intermediary, along with their retailer relationships, fulfillment networks, and advertising businesses.

The deal is expected to close by the end of 2027 or the first half of 2028.

Why this matters: While DoorDash has already expanded well beyond restaurants, building a large grocery business from scratch is slow and expensive. Instacart gives it an immediate shortcut, bringing the retailer relationships, grocery expertise, fulfillment capabilities, and advertising business it would otherwise have to build itself.

Instacart’s grocery business is already more than four times the size of DoorDash’s or Uber’s, per our forecast. Together, DoorDash and Instacart will account for nearly $49.48 billion in US grocery sales this year, nearly six times Uber’s volume.