Max Mullen

Mullen is originally from Los Angeles and graduated from the University of Southern California, where he studied entrepreneurship and cinematic arts. Before founding Instacart, he worked at Schematic, an interactive agency later acquired by WPP, served as a product manager at Location Labs, and founded Volly, a company that helped users make group decisions with friends, serving as its founder and CEO.⁠[1][1][2]

In 2012, Mullen co-founded the online grocery delivery company Instacart with Apoorva Mehta and Brandon Leonardo; the company was incorporated in Delaware as Maplebear Inc. and took part in Y Combinator’s Summer 2012 batch.⁠[3][1][1]

In an August 2016 interview, Mullen recalled that in the early days the three founders took turns answering customer calls on their own cell phones and used the opportunity to ask for product feedback, which shaped the first few major features; the web version, which later became the most popular platform, was built by co-founder Brandon Leonardo over a weekend. He said the company had never pivoted, had always focused on delivering products to customers in as little as an hour, and had always centered on groceries; at first it had no partnerships with grocers and did not show which store items came from, but after learning that customers had a strong affinity for the supermarkets they usually shopped at, it began building partnerships starting with smaller partners, with San Francisco’s Bi-Rite Market among the first to sign and Rainbow also an early partner; by the time of the interview, it had more than 100 partners.⁠[2][2][2][2][2][2][2][2][2][2][2][2]

On April 14, 2021, Routable, a business-to-business payments platform founded in 2017 by Tom Harel and Omri Mor, announced a $30 million Series B led by Sam AltmanSam AltmanSam Altman is an entrepreneur and investor, and the co-founder and chief executive officer of OpenAI. He previously served as president of Y Combinator and founded the location-based social service Loopt. He also helped found Tools for Humanity and Merge Labs, has invested in energy and life sciences ventures, and has driven public discussion of AI governance, employment, and wealth distribution.Open the full entry and Jack Altman, with Mullen, Joe Gebbia, Aaron Levie, Marc Benioff, and others participating as angel investors.⁠[4][4][4][5][5]

In September 2023, Instacart went public at $30 per share, with its stock trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol CART. As a selling stockholder, Mullen beneficially owned 7,765,473 shares, about 3%, before the offering, sold 1,495,223 shares in the offering, and owned about 2% afterward.⁠[3][3][3]

On October 6, 2026, Anchorage Digital announced the acquisition of Routable, in which Mullen had invested; after the deal, Routable would operate as Routable by Anchorage Digital. Before the acquisition, Routable had grown more than 100% in each of the previous two years, and its clients included Veho, Ethos, and Polestar.⁠[6][7][6]

Instacart: Official website: https://www.instacart.com/company (opens in a new window).⁠[3]