Zomato grants $150 Mn loan to Blinkit amidst talks of potential merger

Foodtech major Zomato has agreed to put in a $150 million loan to BlinkIt (formerly Grofers) as part of its future investment in quick commerce business.

According to Zomato’s regulatory filings with the National Stock Exchange on Tuesday, the loan will be given to Grofers India Pvt Ltd (Blinkit’s Indian entity) at an interest rate of 12% a year for a tenure of not more than a year.

Zomato further said that this loan will support the capital requirements of GIPL in the near term and is in line with the Gurugram-based company’s intent of investing up to $400 million cash in quick commerce in India over the next two years. 

The development has come at a time when Zomato is reportedly eyeing the potential acquisition of BlinkIt. As per several media reports, the deal will value Blinkit at around $700-800 million. This is quite lower than BlinkIt’s original valuation. 

The Albinder Dhinsda-led company was valued a little over $1 billion following a $100 million investment from Zomato in last August.

In its regulatory filings, Zomato also said that it has acquired a 16.66% stake in Mukunda Foods Private Limited for $5 million.

Since its listing on stock exchanges in July last year, Zomato has invested in around half a dozen companies. The list includes logistics aggregator Shiprocket, offline discovery and reward platform Magicpin, fitness platform Curefit, digital advertising company Adonmo and food ordering system UrbanPiper.

The quick commerce space is taking India's e-commerce industry by storm. Over the past six months, several new and existing players have invested millions of dollars in 10-15 minute grocery delivery service. BlinkIt was the first player to start 10-minute grocery delivery followed by Zepto, Swiggy, BigBasket, Ola, among others.