March 11 (Reuters) - Instacart said on Thursday cloud-based data warehouse firm Snowflake's chief executive officer, Frank Slootman, has joined the board of the U.S. grocery delivery company that is preparing to go public this year.

Slootman, a software industry veteran who has been behind some big market debuts, was instrumental in taking Snowflake public in a mega initial public offering last year.

He has also led the IPOs of ServiceNow and Data Domain, and oversaw the eventual acquisition of Data Domain by EMC for more than $2 billion.

Instacart is considering going public through a direct listing, Reuters reported earlier this month. It has hired Goldman Sachs Group Inc to lead its upcoming IPO, Reuters reported in November.

The company raised $265 million in its latest round of funding, more than doubling its valuation to $39 billion in less than six months.

The company has seen a boom in demand for delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic and has been expanding its business to non-grocery goods, serving customers of major stores such as Walmart Inc, beauty product retailer Sephora and convenience store 7-Eleven. (Reporting by Nivedita Balu in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)