The country's biggest food delivery app is buying the country's best-known grocery delivery service. DoorDash announced Thursday that it will acquire Instacart for about $17 billion, paying $65 for each Instacart share.

If regulators sign off, the combined company would sit at the center of how millions of households order dinner, restock the fridge and pick up household basics. DoorDash said the two businesses will keep running separately until the deal closes, which it expects in late 2027 or early 2028.

DoorDash plans to keep the Instacart name, app and technology after the merger. Members of the DashPass and Instacart+ programs would eventually pay one membership fee rather than two.

What changes for shoppers

Instacart already connects customers with close to 100,000 stores. DoorDash says the merger would add more than 50,000 additional stores to that list, along with faster delivery choices and more local deals.

DoorDash co-founder and CEO Tony Xu said Instacart has spent years learning how to help grocers sell online, while his company built a delivery network that neighborhood shops depend on daily. Putting the two together, he said, could hand stores of every size more of those tools.

Instacart CEO Chris Rogers said his company has spent 14 years helping retailers large and small compete online. Joining DoorDash, he said, would let the team do even more.

Two very different paths

Instacart launched in 2012 and focuses on grocery and convenience store orders in the United States and Canada. Its business boomed during the pandemic, when lockdowns pushed shoppers to their phones. Growth has been harder since then as Amazon and Walmart pushed deeper into grocery delivery.

DoorDash started a year later in San Francisco as a restaurant delivery company. It moved into groceries in 2020 and later struck partnerships with Kroger and, just last month, with Costco. Its latest quarterly report showed revenue up 34% from a year earlier and total orders up 28%. The company is worth roughly $73 billion and controls well over half of U.S. restaurant delivery.

Investors cheered the news. DoorDash stock jumped more than 9% in early trading Thursday.

Questions ahead

The deal continues a wave of consolidation in delivery. DoorDash bought British rival Deliveroo last year, while Uber owns Postmates and Delivery Hero.

Merging could help the companies trim overlapping corporate jobs and costs. It is less clear how much more customers are willing to pay. Many households already grumble about fees and surcharges, which have climbed this year along with fuel prices.

Gig workers are another pressure point. Last month DoorDash agreed to pay $131.5 million to settle claims by New York City regulators that drivers were shorted on tips. The company admitted it made mistakes that left some drivers underpaid or paid late.

Antitrust reviewers are expected to look closely before the two giants become one.