Food delivery giant Zomato has raised another $250 million in primary fundraising from existing and new investors, The startup had only in December closed a $660 million Series J financing round. The Indian food delivery startup builds a war-chest ahead of its IPO later this year. Zomato’s new round has primarily seen participation from the same set of investors who backed it in December – Kora, Fidelity, and Tiger Global. According to Media, the investors contributed in the following manner – Kora (which contributed $115 million), Fidelity ($55 million), Tiger Global ($50 million), Bow Wave ($20 million), and Dragoneer ($10 million) pumped the new capital into the 12-year-old Gurgaon-headquartered startup, Info Edge, a publicly listed investor in Zomato, disclosed in a filing (PDF) to a local stock exchange. The new investment gives Zomato a post-money valuation of $5.4 billion, up from $3.9 billion in December last year, said Info Edge, which owns an 18.4% stake in the Indian startup.
“On a fully converted and diluted basis, Info Edge’s effective stake in Zomato stands at 18.4 percent,” said Info Edge in the stock exchange filing.
The new investment reinforces the strong confidence investors have in Zomato, which struggled to raise money for much of 5 years. Zomato, which acquired the Indian food delivery business of Uber early last year, competes with Prosus Ventures-backed Swiggy (valued at about $3.6 billion) in India. Together they work with over 440,000 delivery partners, a larger workforce than that employed by the Indian Department of Posts.
Five investors have backed the Gurugram-based unicorn in the new funding round. Existing investors Kora invested $115 million, Fidelity invested $50 million and Tiger Global injected $50 million. Other investors Bow Wave invested $20 million and Dragoneer put in $10 million in the company.
The new investment reinforces the strong confidence investors have in Zomato, which struggled to raise money for much of last year. Zomato, which acquired the Indian food delivery business of Uber early last year, competes with Prosus Ventures-backed Swiggy (valued at about $3.6 billion) in India. Together they work with over 440,000 delivery partners, a larger workforce than that employed by the Indian Department of Posts.
A third player, Amazon, also entered the food delivery market in India last year, though its operations are still limited to parts of Bangalore. In an email to employees in September last year, Goyal said Zomato was working on its IPO for “sometime in the first half” of 2021 and was raising money to build a war-chest for “future M&A, and fighting off any mischief or price wars from our competition in various areas of our business.”
