At the top of the latest IPO price range, the enterprise value would be 16x EBITDA. The right valuation for Instacart depends on where the ultimate rate of sales growth falls, Einhorn said. Including the cash on the company's balance sheet, that values Instacart at about three times EBITDA – way below DoorDash's valuation. Even that would value the company at only seven times 2025 EBITDA, and about 14 times EBITDA from the last four quarters, still a sharp discount to DoorDash. So in a twist few would have predicted in 2020 or 2021, Instacart is trying to go public as a value stock, carefully managed to wring the best results from potentially modest growth.

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Persons: Instacart, –, Einhorn, Matt Einhorn, Mark Mahaney, DoorDash, Nicholas Cauley, Cauley, Covid, Nick Giovanni, Giovanni, EBITDA Organizations: Renaissance Capital, San Francisco, ISI, Walmart, Kroger, Aldi, Omicron, Gross Locations: DoorDash, EBITDA, York