Online food and grocery ordering space is all set to heat up further as Swiggy gears up for its new fundraise. The Bengaluru-based company is in talks with existing and new investors to raise up to $800 million, according to two people aware of the potential round.
“SoftBank, Prosus and several other existing investors are in mid-stage conversations to lead $600-800 million at a valuation of over $10 billion,” said one of the people cited above requesting anonymity.
This would be a 90% jump in Swiggy’s valuation in a matter of a few months. The company was valued at $5.6 billion in July when it raised $1.25 billion led by the SoftBank Vision Fund.
“The valuation is justified considering its rival Zomato’s successful public listing at $8.8 billion valuation,” said the second person who also requested anonymity as talks are private. Currently, Zomato’s market capitalization is $14.08 billion.
Apart from core food delivery, Swiggy has been scaling up its 15-30 minutes grocery delivery service Instamart at a fast clip. “It has a significant lead in grocery over Zomato and this is also a reason for [the] premium in valuation,” said the person quoted above.
Queries sent to Swiggy, Prosus, SoftBank and Accel on Friday didn’t elicit any response. We will update the story in case they respond.
Zomato had failed to build a grocery business on its own and recently pulled the plug from Zomato Market. To facilitate grocery shopping on its app, the company had invested $100 million in the B2B and B2C entities of Grofers. According to media reports, it has also set eyes to eventually acquire the Albinder Dhindsa-led firm.
Besides food and grocery, Swiggy also has a pick-up and drop service Swiggy Genie and a subscription commerce business with SuprDaily. The company counts Qatar Investment Authority, Falcon Edge, Amansa Capital, Goldman Sachs, Think Investments and Carmignac, Accel among several others as its investors. Entrackr couldn’t ascertain the name of new investors who are in talks to invest in the new round.
Swiggy will probably be the first private firm to attain a ‘decacorn’ status—a company that’s valued at $10 billion—this year. Currently, Byju’s and Paytm are the two companies that are valued at over $10 billion. IPO-bound Oyo is valued at $9.6 billion.
Dream11 is also in late-stage talks to raise a new round at a valuation of over $8.5 billion. Entrackr had exclusively reported this early this month.
SoftBank, which announced that the total investment through Vision Fund 2 in India could go up to $4 billion by the end of this year, had invested in Flipkart along with Meesho, Zeta, Whatfix Unacademy, Eruditus and a few others.
