Shipt is an American delivery service owned by Target Corporation. It is headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama. In December 2017 it was announced that Target Corporation was acquiring Shipt for $550 million and that it would operate as an independent subsidiary following the acquisition. As of 2018, Shipt delivers groceries, home products and select electronics.
History
Shipt was founded and initially funded by Bill Smith. The company soft-launched in November 2014 in Birmingham, Alabama with 1,000 pre-enrollment customers and officially launched in Birmingham in May 2015. By 2016, the service was available to 27 metro areas in 9 states. The company initially targeted regions that had no grocery delivery services before expanding into other regions. In July 2016, Shipt received a $20 million Series Ainvestment led by Greycroft Partners, e.ventures and Harbert Growth Partners. The company said it planned to use the funding to develop partnerships and scale. Shipt raised an additional $40 million in Series B funding in June 2017. The round was led by Greycroft Partners with participation from previous investors. At the time of the investment the company operated in 47 markets across the U.S. On December 13, 2017, Target announced it would acquire Shipt for $550 million to improve its same-day shipping capabilities. After the acquisition, Shipt would continue to form delivery partnerships with retailers other than Target. Following the acquisition, Target has said that it plans to use Shipt and its infrastructure to facilitate same-day delivery from a majority of its stores and that the service would be available for more than 55,000 products initially and that by the end of the year every major category of product would be included. In March 2018, the company announced it was launching same-day delivery from Target stores in the Washington D.C., Baltimore, Anchorage, Fairbanks, Juneau and New Orleans, and the New England region the following month with plans to deliver products in 170 markets by year-end. In March 2019, Shipt named Target veteran Kelly Caruso as its new CEO, succeeding founder Bill Smith, who will continue with the company in an advisory role.
