South African Internet group Naspers could forge a strategic partnership with China’s Tencent Holdings to lead a $150-200 million investment in Swiggy.
This development comes after SoftBank and Flipkart ended independent funding discussions with the online food-delivery platform. Japan’s SoftBank dropped out of talks to invest $200-250 million in Swiggy for a significant minority stake.
The deal could likely value the three-year-old venture at $600-650 million before the investment. Swiggy was last valued at $400 million when Naspers led an $80-million investment in May.
Swiggy, the winner of the ET Startup Awards 2017, leads the domestic online food-delivery market by volume, handling more than 140,000 orders a day in India.
While Swiggy is well-capitalised, Ola’s recent acquisition of Foodpanda India forced the company and its investors to go back to the drawing board, with the funding being possibly closed faster than was discussed earlier.
Swiggy, owned and operated by Bundl Technologies, grew the fastest in terms of revenue in fiscal year 2016-17, growing revenue by six times even as losses increased by 50% to Rs 205 crore.