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

BOULDER, CO--(Marketwired - Sep 4, 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 Boulder's first one-hour grocery delivery service. Beginning today, customers can order virtually any items carried in their neighborhood Costco, King Soopers and Whole Foods Market stores and have them delivered in as little as one hour. No Costco membership is required. Additional stores will be added in the coming weeks, and customers can combine items from multiple stores into one order. All customers who place an order on launch day will also receive a month of free deliveries.

Originally launched in San Francisco and since expanded into many other cities, 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.

Instacart launched in Denver in June 2014, and the service's popularity has grown quickly. The company has since fielded hundreds of request to expand into Boulder, which is now Instacart's 15^th city. With a younger population than the national average, mostly due to a large contingent of university students, Boulder is a bustling city with very active residents who take advantage of the outdoor activities the city has to offer year round. "Giving Boulder residents an option to receive their groceries within one hour ensures they don't have to slow down -- or change their lifestyle in any way," said Apoorva Mehta, Instacart founder and CEO. "We're looking forward to introducing Instacart to the citizens of Boulder."

Instacart's initial coverage area includes the Boulder metropolitan area, Lafayette and Louisville. For a full map of coverage, visit https://www.instacart.com/locations/boulder.

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 $5.99. 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 $10 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. Anyone who places an order on launch day gets rewarded with a $10 credit plus a free month of deliveries via Instacart Express.

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.

About Instacart
Instacart is the only service that can deliver groceries on demand from multiple stores within an hour. Founded in San Francisco, Instacart is now available in major cities across the US, delivering from both local grocery stores and national chains such as Whole Foods Market, Safeway, Shaw's, BJ's Wholesale and Costco. Using an innovative crowdsourced approach, Instacart relies on a pool of thousands of trained Personal Shoppers who empower stores to deliver groceries to customers in a fast and cost-effective way. Learn more at www.Instacart.com.