Exclusive: Swiggy in talks to raise $300 Mn in a potential downround

Amidst its preparation for an IPO, food delivery giant Swiggy is in early-stage talks to raise fresh capital through an internal round, said two people aware of the details of the ongoing discussions.

“Existing investors such as SoftBank, Prosus and Alpha Wave and others are in conversations to put in around $300 million in Swiggy,” said one of the sources requesting anonymity. “The talks are preliminary and may take several months to materialize.”

The new money is likely to be deployed towards growing its quick commerce business and new initiatives such as Minis, which is essentially an e-commerce marketplace that enables local businesses to showcase their offerings to Swiggy users.

Sources say the new round could be a downround with the valuation potentially being slashed to the tune of 30%.

Swiggy was valued at around $10.7 billion in its last fundraise in January 2022. Invesco, the lead investor in the round, slashed the firm’s valuation by 25.2% to $8 billion in March this year.

“This news is speculative in nature and holds no truth," a company spokesperson said in a statement. Prosus has stated that this speculation is completely false.

The talks of a new round come at a time when the company is laying the groundwork for its IPO next year. Swiggy has already set a target to turn its core food delivery business profitable this month. Entrackr was the first to report about its IPO plan and profitability of its food delivery unit earlier this year.

While Swiggy is yet to disclose its FY23 numbers, the company’s gross revenue (GMV) surged 2.2X to Rs 5,705 crore in FY22. As per Fintrackr’s analysis, its losses also soared 2.2X and stood at Rs 3,629 crore.

Swiggy’s rival Zomato made its public market debut in July 2021 at a valuation of $12 billion. Since then, Zomato had a tumultuous journey as a public entity, losing around 45% of its market cap in the past 21 months. Its current market cap stands at $6.7 billion.

Update (8:51 pm): The story has been updated to include Swiggy and Prosus' comments.