zomato: Zomato’s Deepinder Goyal transfers his Blinkit shares to Tiger Global
Post the transfer, Tiger Global now holds 2.96 million shares in the grocery delivery platform’s parent, with a total paid up capital of $107.55 million, it said.
The development was first reported by Deal Street Asia.
The share transfer comes at a time when Zomato is ramping up its investment in Blinkit (formerly Grofers) after abandoning its plans to enter and scale its presence in the e-grocery segment, for the second time, since the Covid-19 pandemic hit the country.
Goyal’s
personal investments in Blinkit had come under the scanner after Zomato committed to plough $1 billion in complementary startups over the next two years. It went on to invest in logistics startup Shiprocket, where Goyal had held a personal stake. When Zomato announced its investment in Shiprocket, former Infosys director and chairman at Aarin Capital Partners
, Mohandas Pai had in a tweet raised concerns around “conflict of interest” citing Goyal’s personal investment in the company.
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Thanks @TVMohandasPai for raising an important question. Please see the attached note – hopefully, this will give y… https://t.co/kqTYkfiyf5
— Deepinder Goyal (@deepigoyal) 1639124120000
Responding to it, Goyal had tweeted: “There was no conflict of interest to begin with… This personal investment was one of the key reasons we got closer to Shiprocket (and its founders). That’s how we discovered that there was a potential long-term strategic fit between the two companies… Also, such things (personal investments followed by Zomato stepping in) might continue to happen by design, while we continue to ensure the highest levels of disclosure and corporate governance at Zomato.”
Goyal in December exited his $100,000 personal investment in Shiprocket when Zomato co-led a $185 million round.
Last year, Blinkit
had signed a deal with Zomato and Tiger Global to raise $120 million as a part of a fresh infusion. Blinkit cofounder Albinder Dhindsa later confirmed that the infusion was made at a valuation of more than $1 billion, with which the e-grocer became the 24th unicorn in 2021. A unicorn is a privately held startup with a valuation of $1 billion or above.
Dhindsa had then said the round was still not closed and was expected to see further investments.
ET had on November 18, last year, reported that Zomato was
in talks to invest up to $500 million in additional funding in Blinkit, marking it one of the largest investments ever made by the Indian foodtech major in any startup.
The proposed deal will also mark an extension of its food delivery battle with Swiggy into the so-called ultrafast commerce segment, which is attracting a slug of investor capital globally. The financing would likely value the Dhindsa-led Blinkit at around $1.5 billion, ET had earlier reported.
Swiggy has recently
allocated $700 million to grow its quick commerce vertical Instamart.
Zomato’s strategy around investments in startups mirrors that of its early-investor Info Edge. With a $1-billion corpus, Zomato has been taking bets on businesses in the ordering management, digital advertising, logistics, and fitness space.
Towards the end of January, Zomato invested in a digital advertising company
Adonmo as well as in food ordering system UrbanPiper.
“Both UrbanPiper and Adonmo investments are synergistic to our core business and will help accelerate growth of these companies which will help in filling important gaps in the food ordering and delivery ecosystem in India,” Zomato said in a BSE filing.
