>The delivery service is actually a loss leader for instacart's underlying business, which is influencing purchase decisions through their app and getting paid for it
If that were true, wouldn't a heck of an easier approach have been to setup an "ad network for retail delivery apps"? I think you might be underestimating both the difficulty of the logistics side of their business, and therefore its value as well. I've never really looked into Instacart (Not available here), but I imagine a more likely Instacart investment thesis is "if local businesses were given the option to not have to manage their delivery fleet, with minimal impact on other parts of their business, would they switch? + How much can we reduce the cost of local delivery due to scale/volume, and therefore is a monopoly position in local delivery achievable?