Food-delivery giant Swiggy has raised $700 million in Invesco-led new funding, which, according to sources, has made the outfit a decacorn, almost doubling its valuation to $10.7 billion. Swiggy’s latest valuation is almost double that of Zomato before the latter went for its initial public offering. Zomato was valued at $5.4 billion before its IPO.
The round saw participation from a host of investors such as Baron Capital Group, Sumeru Venture, IIFL AMC Late Stage Tech Fund, Kotak, Axis Growth Avenues AIF- I, Sixteenth Street Capital, Ghisallo, Smile Group, and Segantii Capital. Swiggy’s existing investors Alpha Wave Global (formerly Falcon Edge Capital), the Qatar Investment Authority, and ARK Impact, along with its long-term investor Prosus, also participated in the round. Bengaluru-based Swiggy has overtaken budget hospitality company Oyo, whose valuation dropped to $8 billion in 2020 from $10 billion in 2019, and then increased to $9 billion in 2021. Swiggy has overtaken sports technology company Dream Sports, the parent firm of fantasy sports platform Dream11. This investment in Swiggy comes at a time when the adoption of food and online grocery is accelerating and consumer demand for Swiggy’s many services continues to grow. ALSO READ: Swiggy raises $700 mn in new funding round led by Invesco While the food-delivery business has nearly doubled in gross order value (GOV) in the last year, this fundraise will enable Swiggy to accelerate growth on the core platform and make meaningful investment to grow Instamart, its quick commerce grocery service which remains well-positioned to continue to lead the emerging space and set to reach an annualised gross merchandise value (GMV) run rate of $1 billion in the next three quarters. The company will strengthen its investment in the broader ecosystem. The fundraise will give Swiggy enough firepower to take on rivals such as Zomato, Amazon, Flipkart, Dunzo, Licious, and Ola Foods. “The GMV our food-delivery business achieved in 40 months took Instamart just 17 months, demonstrating the platform benefits of Swiggy. We will double down on this to build more categories,” said Sriharsha Majety, chief executive officer and co-founder, Swiggy. “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,” he added. Last year in July, Swiggy had closed a $1.25-billion fundraise, marking the first investment in the category by SoftBank Vision Fund 2. This raised the valuation of the start-up by more than 50 per cent to $5.5 billion from $3.6 billion earlier, according to industry sources.