Indian food delivery giant Swiggy raises $700 million at $10.7 billion valuation

Swiggy, India’s top food delivery startup, has raised $700 million in a new financing round, just six months after securing $1.25 billion, as it aggressively expands its offerings including the instant-delivery service in the South Asian market.

Invesco led the Bengaluru-headquartered startup’s Series K round, which according to a source familiar with the matter values the seven year-old startup at $10.7 billion. Swiggy was valued at $5.5 billion in July last year.

At a $10.7 billion valuation, Swiggy has surpassed the valuation of its 13-year-old chief rival Zomato, which went public last year and whose market cap has shrunk to under $10 billion.

New investors Baron Capital Group, Sumeru Venture, IIFL AMC Late Stake Tech Fund, Kotak, Axis Growth, Sixteenth Street Capital, Ghisallo, Smile Group, Segantii Capital as well as existing backers including Prosus Ventures, Alpha Wave Global, Qatar Investment Authority and ARK Impact also invested in the new round.

TechCrunch reported in late September that Invesco was in talks to lead an investment of over $500 million in Swiggy.

The new funding follows a strong year of growth for Swiggy in which the startup nearly doubled its food delivery business’ gross order value, it said. Instamart, Swiggy’s instant delivery service, is set to reach an annual GMV run rate of $1 billion in the next three quarters, the startup said.

Instamart has become one of the major focus areas for Swiggy in the past year and a half.

The startup, which operates in over 500 Indian cities, said last year that it plans to invest $700 million to scale Instamart’s offerings and reach. The quick delivery space, which has made inroads in several markets in recent years, is becoming competitive in India, too.

Y Combinator Continuity Fund led the Mumbai-headquartered 10-minute-delivery service Zepto’s $100 million funding late last year. Zomato-backed BlinkIt (formerly known as Grofers), which like Swiggy is also backed by SoftBank, pivoted to instant delivery space last year.

“As long-term investors, the Invesco Developing Markets fund seeks investment opportunities in the best companies in the world, led by world-class management teams, and that have the potential for long-term structural growth,” said Justin Leverenz, Chief Investment Officer at Invesco Developing Markets Fund, said in a statement. “Our investment in Swiggy represents such an investment.”

Sriharsha Majety, co-founder and chief executive of Swiggy, said Instamart has reached a GMV in just 17 months what it took the core food delivery business 40 months to deliver.

“Our goal is to make Swiggy the platform that 100 million consumers can use 15 times a month. We will continue to invest in our people, products, and partners to create a positive impact on the ecosystem and accelerate the digital transformation in food and grocery delivery and other on-demand services,” he added.

At stake is India’s food services market, which is expected to reach $97 billion by March of 2026, analysts at Bernstein wrote in a report to clients last year.

“India food services market is large and expected to reach $97 billion by FY25. Organized food service is growing faster and expected to reach 55% market share by FY25. We expect online penetration to expand to 20% by FY25 and market size to reach $20 billion growing at 46% CAGR. Significant part of the growth will be driven by new customer acquisition and penetration into smaller markets. Zomato had 10 million monthly transacting users (MTU) in FY20, expected to increase 5x by FY25 to ~50 million,” they wrote.

Amazon, a third player, has also entered the food delivery space in India in recent years, but, as a Zomato executive mentioned in a public forum last year, the American e-commerce group has yet to make inroads in this category.

from https://techcrunch.com/2022/01/24/indian-food-delivery-giant-swiggy-raises-700-million-at-10-7-billion-valuation/