Zomato to travel public by half of 2021, as Tiger Global, others join financing round
“We have raised tons of cash , and today, our take advantage the bank, around $250 million, is quite ever in our history,” says company CEO.
MUMBAI: Zomato has roped in New York-based investment fund Tiger Global as a part of its current fundraising round, the web food delivery platform’s cofounder and CEO Deepinder Goyal said in an email to employees on Thursday. The Gurugram-based firm is additionally on track to tap the general public markets by mid-2021, Goyal added within the email, which ET has seen.
“We have raised tons of cash , and today, our take advantage the bank, around $250 million, is quite ever in our history. Tiger Global, Temasek, Baillie Gifford and Ant Financial have already participated in our current round, and there are more big names joining the round – we estimate that our current round will find yourself with us at $600 million within the bank very soon…,” Goyal wrote.
In a regulatory filing made with the Bombay stock market , InfoEdge, one among Zomato’s early investors said, the corporate has raised $100 million from Tiger Global Management, and $60 million from Temasek Holdings, at a post-money valuation of $3.3 billion.
“We haven’t any immediate plans on the way to spend this money. We are treating this cash as a ‘war chest’ for future M&A and fighting off any mischief or price wars from our competition in various areas of our business…,” he added.
On September 3, ET reported that Zomato has racked up around $250 million from new investors like Tiger and Kora Capital — in an ongoing funding round valuing the platform at around $3 billion, consistent with people conscious of the event . While Temasek has invested $62 million, we reported earlier that $100 million each is predicted to return from Tiger and Kora, a hedge fund focused on emerging markets.
On the company’s IPO plan, Goyal wrote, “Our finance/legal teams are working hard to require us to IPO sometime within the half of next year. We hope to make tons useful for our current employees who have Esops (employee stock ownership plans) sometime within the next year.” Goyal further said that Zomato’s burn rate had been reducing whilst its market share was accelerating altogether regions. For the month of July, the corporate said its monthly burn rate is under $1 million. Zomato has earlier said it’s clocking improved unit economics over the past 12 months, and has registered strong recovery of our its food delivery business at 80% of pre-Covid levels, because the broader market bounces back.
Goyal said the corporate had facilitated the sale of Esops for ex-employees worth $30 million (or Rs 225 crore) to investors. “That’s tons of meaningful wealth creation we’ve enabled for our people. On a mean , people sold their Esops at a 4x premium to what those shares were allotted to them back within the day,” he added. He said variety of former employees who had started up wanted to sell their shares. “Our IPO is round the corner and waiting a touch longer will end in significantly more value creation for all folks .
For Zomato, the new round of financing led by US and Singapore-based financial investors comes amid uncertainty surrounding the India strategy of its prominent backer — China’s Ant Financial. Alibaba’s sister company, Ant, which holds 25% in Zomato, had committed to investing $150 million in January. However, Zomato has been ready to access only $50 million thus far . The changing stance by Chinese investors like Ant comes amid a wave of anti-China sentiment sweeping across India and also globally, especially within the US. additionally , India’s new FDI rules introduced in April require regulatory approval for any investment from a rustic that shares a land border with the country.
