If by "even though all they've really done", you mean, (1) They've opened several proprietary warehouses, (2) They've developed direct sourcing relationships

If by "even though all they've really done", you mean, (1) They've opened several proprietary warehouses, (2) They've developed direct sourcing relationships with numerous farms, cutting out any distributors/wholesalers/etc, (3) They've hired chefs to figure out how to take real-time supply data from (2) and convert it into recipes, with the right portions, that account for seasonality, weather, and other supply variations, (4) They've executed a consumer marketing campaign that's led to over 159 million meals served across 25 million orders then sure yeah, they're just a "costly middleman". I don't use this service, but you might try reading their S-1. It contains a lot of interesting commentary on their strategy, and hard data on the business. I don't know whether this thing will be worth its IPO price, or have a lot of upside when it goes public, but I do think there's space in the market for a company that handles all the logistics and gets the exact right quantity of stuff on your table. Per their S-1, 21% of all food purchased in the US is thrown out - that's plenty of room for innovation. Also, consider that they've done all this on $195 million vs. $675 million blown by Instacart. I know for sure which one I'm more impressed by, but you be the judge.