Zomato, an Indian food delivery startup, has raised $562.3 million from investors, TechCrunch reported.
The company is heading for an initial public offering (IPO) this week, and it has already secured around 45 percent of the $1.3 billion it is planning on raising via the IPO, according to TechCrunch. The investors participating thus far include Tiger Global Management, Fidelity, New World, Baillie Gifford, Government of Singapore, Canada Pension Plan, Mirae Asset, T. Rowe Price and Steadview.
Those investors have subscribed the shares at $1, the upper end of Zomato shares’ price range, which gives an implied valuation of $8.6 billion, TechCrunch reported. That’s a boost from an earlier valuation of $5.4 billion from early 2021.
Zomato executives, speaking at a virtual event last week, said the company will be focusing on India, according to TechCrunch. The company will also be focusing on online grocery delivery in the future, the executives said.
In addition, the company doesn’t seem to consider Amazon as a rival or roadblock to its own success, saying Amazon hadn’t had an adverse effect on Zomato’s market share, TechCrunch reported.
Instead, the company’s chief rival is Swiggy, which is backed by SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2, according to TechCrunch.
The public share sale for Zomato will open Wednesday (July 14) and close Friday (July 16).
Earlier in July, Zomato announced its plans to return more robustly to a grocery delivery model, a change from its earlier position when it briefly went into grocery under the name Zomato Market, which launched in April 2020.
“Grocery is a large opportunity, and it is in the nascent stage right now, but growing rapidly,” Zomato Chief Financial Officer Akshant Goyal said, according to PYMNTS.
The field is also being consolidated as numerous partnerships are being created between grocery companies and new apps and FinTechs.