Retailer Target Corp. announced it will pay $550 million in cash for Shipt Inc., a human cloud firm that uses independent contractors — called shoppers — to deliver groceries and other goods from stores to end clients. Shipt is a competitor to Instacart, which appears on Staffing Industry Analysts “The Gig Economy and Human Cloud Landscape” report.

“With Shipt’s network of local shoppers and their current market penetration, we will move from days to hours, dramatically accelerating our ability to bring affordable same-day delivery to guests across the country,” said John Mulligan, executive VP and chief operating officer for Target.

Shipt is based in Birmingham, Ala., and was founded in 2014. It has a network of more than 20,000 independent contractor personal shoppers.

Shipt will be a wholly owned subsidiary of Target and will continue to run its business independently.

The deal is expected to close by the end of the year.