After Alibaba and Tencent, Softbank eyes to invest $200-250 Mn in Swiggy

Swiggy seems to be a potential investee for homegrown Internet companies as well as global investment giants.

After Flipkart and Tencent, now Softbank is eying for a significant minority stake in the food-tech platform. The Masayoshi Son-led investment firm is reportedly in discussion with Swiggy to put $200-250 million.

Flipkart and Tencent have been engaged in talks with the Bengaluru-based company for months to invest about $100 million in it.

According to an Economic Times report, if the talks materialize, the food delivery major will be valued at $600-650 million.

Besides Softbank, Tencent, and Flipkart, Alibaba and Ant Financials also expressed interest to invest in Swiggy.

Earlier this month, media reports also hinted that Alibaba explored merger chances between Swiggy and Zomato. It expressed interest to invest in the combined entity.

Current state of food-tech majors in India

Till date, Bengaluru-based Swiggy has raised $156 million. In May this year, Swiggy had raised $80 million in Series E funding led by Naspers. The startup raised the funds at a valuation of $400 million. Whereas its competitor Zomato has raised about $223 million in total funding.

Currently, the Naspers-backed company does about 4 million orders a month while Zomato processes about 3 million orders on a monthly basis. Zomato has also turned profitable in all geographies.

To taken-on rival Swiggy, it recently announced a zero commission campaign for restaurant partners.

The food-tech space in India is currently on a rise. As per a report by RedSeer, India’s online food delivery market comprising of aggregators and cloud kitchens grew at 150% last year.

In India, around 10 million people order food online.

When we compare this with the Chinese food delivery market that largely grew on the back of smartphone penetration – it’s very minuscule. China has about 256 million people who order food online. This number is estimated to touch 346 million by next year.