Deepinder Goyal, online food aggregator and delivery platform Zomato’s Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, has sold his personal stake in Blinkit, formerly known as Grofers, to Tiger Global Management.
Grofers is run and operated by Grofers India Pvt Ltd, a subsidiary of Singapore-based Grofers International Pte Ltd.
Deal Street Asia reported the story first citing Tiger Global’s filing with Singapore’s Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority. The report mentioned that Goyal had first invested in Blinkit in 2015, and based on Blinkit’s latest share price available post its last fundraise, Goyal will be making $2.86 million through the deal.
Email queries to Zomato did not elicit any response till this article was published.
While the stake sale is yet to ascertained, Goyal’s likely exit from Blinkit comes at a time when Zomato is reportedly looking to invest $500 million in Blinkit, in a bid to strengthen the food-delivery company’s instant delivery segment. The transaction comes on the back of Goyal's stake sale in Shiprocket, which he claimed to have made before Zomato invested in the e-commerce shipping and enablement platform in November last year.
In a tweet in December, Goyal had said that he sold his entire stake of $100,000 in Shiprocket at ‘zero profit/loss,’ before Zomato co-led a $185 million funding round in Shiprocket along with Temasek Holdings and Lightrock India.
With Blinkit, the recently-listed Zomato, whose stock took a beating over the past few weeks, is eyeing the consumer grocery delivery segment in India, that has gained traction lately, with many new-age technology companies making forays into the segment. In January, Zomato’s arch rival Swiggy, operated by Bundl Technologies Pvt Ltd, had announced raising $700 million from global investors, to focus on investing heavily in its quick commerce segment--Swiggy Instamart. In December last year, Swiggy said it will be investing $700 million in its express grocery delivery service Instamart.
Another company in the quick commerce segment, Zepto, operated by Kiranakart Technologies Pvt Ltd, has been raising funds aggressively over the last 12 months. Zepto guarantees 10-minute delivery of groceries in cities, where it currently has a presence.
To be sure, Zomato had made forays into the grocery delivery segment in April 2020 when the country went into a nationwide lockdown, but the company scaled back the business in only about two months. Last year, in July, the company again announced venturing into the grocery delivery segment.
However, in September, the company said that it will rely on Blinkit for grocery deliveries, VCCircle had reported. Zomato had invested $100 million in Blinkit last year for a 9.3% stake in the company, which had valued the company at over $1 billion.
Blinkit, meanwhile, had rebranded itself with a view to expanding its 10-minute delivery business to 100 cities. The company had then said it will diversify into non-grocery deliveries under the 10-minute umbrella.