Foodtech major Swiggy has raised a staggering $1 billion round led by Naspers. The financing round that valued Swiggy in tune of $3.3 billion also participated by three new investors including Tencent, Hillhouse Capital, and Wellington Management.
Existing investors including DST Global, Meituan Dianping and Coatue Management also participated in the round. With this, the Bengaluru-based company had raised $1.31 billion in 2018 across three rounds.
Swiggy will deploy funds towards onboarding quality food brands and ramping up its cloud kitchen vertical – Access. The proceeds will also be used in building a new business – Swiggy Dash. It will deliver grocery, medicine and execute other hyperlocal deliveries.
It’s also entering micro-delivery segment soon and already had acquired Mumbai-based Suprdaily.
Swiggy’s early backers – Norwest Venture Partners, Accel, Bessemer Venture Partners, and SAIF Partners are likely to offload shares worth $300 million in this round. This would be the biggest secondary share dilution event ever executed in Indian startup ecosystem.
Currently, Swiggy operates in over 50 cities while its rival Zomato and Foodpanda recently expanded into 100 cities.
Earlier in June, Swiggy had raked in $210 million in a Series G round from Naspers, DST Global, Coatue Management and Meituan-Dianping.
So far, its rival Zomato had scooped up $410 million risk capital in 2018. Currently, it’s also negotiating a mega round from existing investors – majorly Alibaba.
On the back of massive funding and spurt in Internet users, the foodtech space in India is on a rise. According to the Kotak Institutional Equities, the food delivery and takeaway market is set to grow up to $29 billion by 2021 with the number of orders going up to 51 million on a monthly basis.
