Zomato Raises $210 Mn From Alibaba’s Alipay Singapore

Foodtech giant Zomato has signed a definitive agreement to raise a primary funding of about $210 Mn from Alibaba-owned digital payment subsidiary Alipay Singapore Holdings Pte Ltd.

According to a stock exchange filing by Info Edge (India), which held 30.91% of the share capital in Zomato, the company said that its shareholding in Zomato will now reduce to about 27.68% on fully converted and diluted basis once the funding is closed.

“We would like to bring to your knowledge that Zomato has signed a definitive agreement to undertake a primary fundraise of approximately $210 Mn from Alipay Singapore Holding Pte. Ltd (which is an existing shareholder of Zomato) and/or any of its affiliates,” Info Edge stated in the filing.

Alibaba-Zomato Journey Together

The development comes after Zomato raised $200 Mn in a funding round led by Ant Financial in February. Under this deal, Alipay had invested $150 Mn as primary capital in Zomato.

In September, Ant Financial had secured the right to become the largest shareholder in the foodtech platform.

At present, Ant Financial holds about 20-22% stake in Zomato. After the investment, its shareholding may be on par or more than Info Edge.

In September, Zomato announced to have crossed over $1 Bn GMV with 21 Mn monthly online food orders in India, and another 2 Mn orders over the phone.

Here are some of the recent developments in Zomato:

• Including the funds raised in February, Zomato has raised a total of $443.8 Mn funding in over 10 rounds since its inception, says Crunchbase report
• The platform is also in talks to raise nearly $100 Mn from China-based travel-booking site Ctrip
• In FY2018, Zomato clocked a revenue of $74 Mn, as compared to $51 Mn in the previous fiscal.

In September, media reports surfaced stating that Zomato’s arch-rival Swiggy is in talks to raise $500-700 Mn from China-based multinational investment company Tencent.

Various reports suggest that major investment companies have been trying to enter the foodtech space in India, with Japanese conglomerate SoftBank looking to invest in either Swiggy or Zomato.

With these developments, the food war between the major players in this space including Foodpanda, UberEATs etc is growing intense. As the space is projected to grow by 34-36% over 2015 to 2020, according to Netscribe, the overwhelming competition among the platforms to serve food will be interesting to watch.