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TechCheck

TechCheck+ Is Instacart Really a Tech Company? The Case For and Against 9/22/23

TechCheck

CNBC

Disruptors, Cnbc, Investing, Tech, Management, Business, Technology, Faang

4.566 Ratings

🗓️ 22 September 2023

⏱️ 11 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Some of the biggest, most highly-anticipated IPOs of the last few years have fallen short, burning investors who thought they were buying a technology stock. Peloton, WeWork, Blue Apron, and StitchFix all might have called themselves tech companies, but their growth ended up being hugely restricted by real-world limitations. So as a new wave of IPOs begin, investors might be struggling to determine where Instacart falls. This week on Tech Check, we dive into the grocery delivery app and ask, is Instacart really a tech company?

Transcript

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0:00.0

Some of the biggest, most highly anticipated IPOs of the last few years have

0:07.5

fallen short burning the investors who bought into their IPOs. In some cases

0:11.6

they were companies that claimed to be technology

0:13.6

companies but they were ultimately limited by real world factors. Peloton,

0:18.3

we work, blue apron, stitch fix. So as a new wave of IPOs begin, where does Instacart fall?

0:25.0

This week on Tech Check, we dive into the grocery delivery app and ask,

0:29.5

Is Instacart really a tech company?

0:32.0

CEO Fiji Simo paints the picture of a platform firmly integrated in technology.

0:37.0

So a very large supply advantage and not just, you know, retailer sitting on our marketplace, but actually retail is leveraging our technology even for their own and operated websites, whether it's ProGale.com, Publix.com, Wegmans.com, Spratsrauts. All of these are powered in one form of another by Instacock.

0:56.9

One that leans on artificial intelligence

0:59.1

and billions of data points.

1:00.6

We have a view into inventory, and we have a view thanks to. of

1:05.0

we have a view into inventory and we have a view thanks to AI and machine learning into what's on the shelf at a given point in time and if it's not on the shelf

1:11.0

we can suggest the absolute best replacement based on billions of data points

1:15.9

that we've accumulated over the years and that's what creates a much superior experience.

1:22.0

And that is also a talking point for Instacard investors.

1:25.0

There is a tremendous amount of technology that goes into, you know, to us it just feels like,

1:30.0

hey, someone showed up with the groceries I wanted.

1:32.0

There's a lot more technology

1:33.6

that happens in order to guide folks around the store, do things like managing and

1:37.5

keep the inventory up to date, there's a lot more nuance behind the scenes and I

1:40.8

think that technology itself has a tremendous amount of value. the Thompson of Stretecery has a different set of criteria to determine whether a company is truly a tech company

...

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