Instacart is going public. For real, this time.

Instacart is reportedly targeting an IPO as soon as September. It's not the first time the grocery delivery company has tried to go public.

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• Instacart is reportedly planning to go public in an IPO as soon as September, per Bloomberg.
• The grocery delivery company has reportedly tried to go public multiple times before.
• The report comes weeks after Instacart cut base pay for its shoppers.

You'll soon be able to buy Instacart stock — but we've heard that before.

The grocery delivery company could go public as soon as September, Bloomberg reported on Thursday.

Instacart could file plans for the IPO with the US Securities and Exchange Commission as soon as next week, according to Bloomberg. The plans would include details about the company's financial performance, which have not been available to the public so far.

Instacart declined to comment on the report.

The reported IPO plans come weeks after Instacart cut base pay for its shoppers to $4 per order from $7. Since then, some Instacart workers have started searching for other jobs, saying that their earnings have fallen so much that shopping and delivering orders through the platform is no longer worth their time.

Reports about Instacart planning an IPO have trickled out for nearly three years.

Demand for grocery delivery rose in the early months of 2020 as consumers avoided going to stores and socially distanced to avoid catching and spreading COVID-19. Against that backdrop, Instacart started preparing for an early-2021 IPO by hiring bankers, CNBC reported in November 2020.

But over the last two years, many customers have become comfortable doing their own shopping again. In March 2021, the Information reported that Instacart paused plans to go public, opting to wait and see what post-pandemic demand for its services would look like.

Many white-collar employers have required their workers to come back to physical offices after a prolonged work-from-home phase during the pandemic. That's made ordering groceries for delivery less attractive, since remote workers are more likely to order groceries online, according to a survey conducted earlier this year by Morning Consult.

Instacart reportedly filed for a direct listing in early 2022. As the year went on, though, it started considering a traditional IPO. An IPO involves raising money by issuing new shares, while a direct listing raises no new capital and only allows existing shares to change hands.

Instacart reportedly targeted an IPO before the end of 2022, according to the Wall Street Journal.

But those plans, too, were scuttled. Few companies, especially in the technology sector, went public in 2022. Instacart CEO Fidji Simo cited the slow IPO market as one reason Instacart delayed its offering again, the Journal reported last October.

Demand for grocery delivery has continued to weaken, according to consultancy Brick Meets Click. Online grocery sales in the US for July were $7.2 billion, down 7% from a year ago, according to a survey from Brick Meets Click and Mercatus.

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