Other investors include Comcast Ventures, the Dragoneer Investment Group, Thrive Capital, Valiant Capital, and Instacart's previous backers, Andreessen Horowitz, Khosla Ventures, and Sequoia Capital. A person familiar with the investment round who wasn't authorized to discuss it publicly confirms earlier reports that the funding round valued the start-up at $2bn.

In 2013, Instacart had only 10 full-time employees and the germ of an idea: that groceries could be plucked and quickly delivered to people's doorsteps from the shelves of existing supermarkets, rather than from refrigerated fulfillment centers outside major metropolitan areas. Like Uber and Lyft, Instacart relies on an army of smartphone-toting independent contractors, who scour store shelves and transport goods to people's homes using personal cars.

The concept first attracted attention from veteran investors such as Sequoia's Mike Moritz, who previously belly-flopped into the first wave of failed food delivery start-ups like Webvan.

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