SUMMARY
Deepinder Goyal was one of the early investors of Blinkit; he invested in Blinkit as early as 2015
Goyal had sold his Blinkit stake ahead of Zomato going public in July 2021
Blinkit entered the unicorn club last year after Zomato’s $120 Mn investment
Zomato founder Deepinder Goyal has sold his personal stake from quick commerce delivery platform Blinkit (earlier known as Grofers) to US-based hedge fund Tiger Global.
The development was first reported by Deal Street Asia citing Tiger Global’s Singapore regulatory filing.
The report said that Goyal had first invested in Blinkit in 2015 and sold his stake in Blinkit ahead of the food delivery giant hitting the public market. The deal also happened after Zomato invested $120 Mn in Blinkit.
The investment that took place last year in June, helped the grocery delivery startup’s valuation touch $1 Bn, after merger talks fell. As per media reports, Blinkit is also in talks to bag $500 Mn in the coming months to strengthen its market presence.
Coming to Zomato, at the end of last year, it had handed out a cheque size of $75 Mn and led the $185 Mn round in the Delhi-based logistics startup Shiprocket. Soon after the announcement, chairman of Manipal Global Education Services Mohandas Pai took to twitter tagging Sanjeev Bhikhchandani of Info Edge, asking whether there was any ‘conflict of interest’ in Zomato’s investment.
To further break down, Deepinder Goyal had earlier invested in Shiprocket at his personal expense. So what Mohandas Pai could have meant was Zomato investment would further increase the valuation of the company, thus ballooning the worth of shares held by Goyal.
However, replying to Pai, Goyal said that in order to avoid zero conflict of interests, Goyal who had invested $100K had exited Shiprocket at zero profit or loss before Zomato signed the deal.
He further asked Pai not to ask Bhikhchandani and tag him instead from the next time.
Last month, Zomato also invested $15 Mn in an adtech company AdOnMo for 19.8% stake. However, Zomato had clarified that his investment in Bace Fund LP, a venture fund which has invested in AdOnMo is an insignificant portion. And it is expected that Zomato will be investing in startups across the sectors in the coming months.
Blinkit, the Gurugram based startup competes against the likes of Swiggy’s Instamart, Mumbai-based Zepto, Bigbasket, among others.
While Zepto, a Mumbai-based quick delivery startup raised $160 Mn in two rounds within a span of one month, Swiggy has pledged to invest $700 Mn in Instamart.
As per a RedSeer report, the quick commerce market in India is expected to reach $5 Bn by 2025 from the current $0.3 Bn.
