INSTACART'S IPO SURGES AS THE GROCERY DELIVERY COMPANY GOES FROM THE SUPERMARKET TO THE STOCK MARKET

Instacart delivered in its stock market debut.

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The grocery delivery company’s shares __ priced at $30 per share ahead of the IPO __ hit a peak of $42.95 Tuesday in the first few minutes of trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange. They finished the day up 12.3% at $33.70, giving the company a market value of more than $11 billion.

At Instacart’s San Francisco headquarters, CEO Fidji Simo and other executives celebrated the IPO by ringing a bell shaped like the company’s carrot logo. Around 1,000 employees attended, the company said. Instacart’s shares are trading under the ticker symbol “CART.”

The IPO is a long-awaited step for Instacart, which was founded in 2012. The company filed privately for an IPO in May 2022 but delayed those plans last fall when the markets were roiling due to recession fears. There were just 71 IPOs in the U.S. last year, the lowest number since 2009, according to Renaissance Capital.

But a resurgent market is seeing more IPO activity this year. Last week, shares of U.K. chip maker Arm Holdings rose almost 25% in their stock market debut on the Nasdaq, the largest IPO in nearly two years.