Zomato closes $660 Mn round at a valuation of $3.9 Bn

Zomato has closed a $660 million primary financing round at a post-money valuation of $3.9 billion, said the foodtech unicorn’s co-founder and Deepinder Goyal in a tweet on Friday.

According to Goyal, 10 new investors are joining the round including Tiger Global, Kora, Luxor, Fidelity (FMR), D1 Capital, Baillie Gifford, Mirae Asset and Steadview Capital.

This is a significant jump in the company’s valuation from $3.18 billion in August when Temasek had picked up preference capital worth nearly $61 million in the Gurugram-based firm through MacRitchie Investments. 

Also, this could be the last fundraise for Zomato before its public listing. Three months ago, the company had claimed that it is preparing for an IPO in 2021. However, the company didn’t reveal whether it will go public in India or the US.

Along with the primary financing, Zomato is also in the process of closing a $140 million secondary transaction and as part of this transaction, it has already provided liquidity worth $30 million to its former employees. Earlier, Goyal had said that the company facilitated the sale of $30 million worth ESOPs for former employees at a 4x premium.

In October, Entrackr had exclusively reported that Zomato is set to see a secondary transaction in which the company’s co-founder and former Pankaj Chaddah along with up to two dozen existing and former employees are expected to sell their stocks.

In a series of tweets, Goyal also revealed the growth figures of the ongoing month. “Food delivery in India is rapidly coming out of COVID-19 shadows. December 2020 is expected to be the highest ever GMV month in our history. We are now clocking ~25% higher GMV than our previous peaks in February 2020,” he added.

Zomato had already announced that it reached its pre-Covid peak in October and delivered 92 million orders since the first lockdown in March. The company further claimed that the number of delivery orders surged to 130 million till November 18 and 150 million till December 18 since March 23.

While Zomato’s IPO plan may become a reality in 2021, the company’s annual financial report for FY20 shows that it needs a turnaround to recover from huge losses. According to Zomato’s unaudited financial data for the last fiscal year, it had a revenue of $394 million with EBITDA losses at $293 million.