Instacart Launches Denver's First One-Hour Grocery Delivery Service

DENVER, CO--(Marketwired - Jun 24, 2014) - Instacart (www.Instacart.com), the only service that can deliver groceries from multiple local stores within an hour, announced today that it has launched Denver's first one-hour grocery delivery service. Beginning today, customers can order virtually any items carried in their neighborhood King Soopers and Costco stores and have them delivered in as little as one hour. Additional stores will be added in the coming weeks, and customers can combine items from multiple stores into one order.

Originally launched in San Francisco and since expanded into 10 other major cities including Denver, Instacart has disrupted the traditional grocery delivery space with its crowdsourced labor force dubbed "Personal Shoppers" who shop for and deliver grocery orders providing their own transportation in as little as one hour. This eliminates the need for costly infrastructure such as inventory, warehouses, trucks and full-time drivers.

On June 16, Instacart announced that it had closed a $44M round of Series B funding led by Andreessen Horowitz. The company plans to apply the funds toward geographic expansion, among other things. Denver is the first of an additional seven cities Instacart plans to launch in before the close of 2014.

Instacart founder Apoorva Mehta said the company had seen strong demand for its services in Denver. The Instacart team tracks requests by zip code at www.instacart.com. "We chose Denver as an expansion city due to its young, tech-oriented population with busy lifestyles," said Mehta. "Instacart has been extremely successful in young cities with blooming startup scenes, and Denver fits the mold entirely. We are very excited to give people in Denver access to healthy groceries on demand."

Instacart's initial coverage area includes nearly all of the Denver metropolitan area. For a full map of coverage, visit https://www.instacart.com/locations/denver.

How Instacart works:

• Customers go online to www.Instacart.com or open the Instacart mobile app, select their city/store, add items to a virtual cart, and then choose a delivery window (within one hour, within two hours, or some scheduled time in the future) and check out.
• An Instacart Personal Shopper accepts the order on his/her smartphone, uses the Instacart Shopper app to guide them through shopping, and then delivers the order to the customer in the designated delivery timeframe.

The vast majority of Instacart customers select two-hour delivery for a charge of just $3.99. One-hour delivery is also available, for $14.99. The minimum order size is just $10. For other FAQs, visit https://www.instacart.com/store#faq. 

Customers can open an account at www.Instacart.com, and get free delivery on their first order of $35 or more. Instacart also offers an Amazon-Prime like service called Instacart Express -- an annual membership that eliminates delivery fees for all orders of $35 or more. The cost is just $99. Customers can sign up for a free two-week trial at www.instacart.com/express.

Instacart is looking to hire two full-time City Managers to be based in its Denver office. Candidates can apply online at https://www.instacart.com/jobs#operations/city-manager-denver.

About Instacart
Instacart is the only service that can deliver groceries from multiple local stores within an hour, and is often less expensive for consumers than a personal, time-consuming trip to the grocery store. Customers in San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia, San Jose, Seattle and Washington, DC can choose from over 350,000 items from local grocery stores and large chains like Safeway, Whole Foods Market, Shaw's, Harris Teeter, BJ's Wholesale and Costco. Instacart is disrupting the traditional grocery delivery business with its approach, which utilizes a crowdsourced model of Personal Shoppers who provide their own transportation and smartphones to shop and deliver groceries to customers. This model eliminates the need for costly infrastructure such as warehouses, trucks and full-time drivers. Learn more at www.Instacart.com.