Gopuff, the instant grocery startup, is raising $1.5B in a convertible note at up to a $40B valuation, ahead of going public as soon as mid-2022

Instant grocery — where urban-dwelling consumers buy food and other essentials and can get them delivered in 15 minutes or less — continues to be a big business, and one of the juggernauts in the space is now raising a big round of funding to meet that opportunity: Gopuff is in the process of raising $1.5 billion, with a valuation of up to $40 billion.

From what we understand, the funding is being structured as a “Series X” convertible note from Guggenheim Partners. Other investors are not being disclosed. The size and nature of the raise, as a convertible note, is a strong indicator that this is a round being raised ahead of a liquidity event for Philadelphia-based Gopuff, most likely an IPO that could happen as soon as mid-2022.

The funding process was first discovered and flagged to us by Prime Unicorn Index (which Axios has also separately reported). The round has yet to close and the value of the raise and the valuation are the highest amount as indicated in the filing.

The round is coming swiftly on the heels of a couple of other events for Gopuff. This summer, we broke the news that the company raised $1 billion at a $15 billion valuation, and then in November, the company launched officially in London on the back of two acquisitions it had made, of Dija and Fancy, with plans to expand further into Europe.

That European expansion has involved some attempted M&A in Europe: We’ve confirmed with sources on both sides of the deal that Gopuff had made an offer to acquire Flink out of Germany — another instant grocery player.

That deal didn’t happen — not yet at least — because of differences of opinion on valuation, and a general appetite for getting acquired, according to sources. But it — and now this big funding round — both underscore Gopuff’s intentions and attentions.

Flink, incidentally, had also been approached by Amazon and is now being backed by DoorDash, which underscores just how much big competition Gopuff has here, but on the other hand, there are so many strong instant grocery players in Europe that there will continue to be a number of options for it and others.