Online food discovery and delivery platform Zomato has reportedly raised an additional amount of Rs 380 crore (around $52 million) from US-based Kora Investments. This comes as part of the ongoing $600 million financing round, as per regulatory filings.
The total amount raised so far has gone up to around $220 million, which includes new investor Tiger Global and existing investor Temasek.
After the current investment, Zomato’s valuation has been pegged at $3 billion. This comes at a time when the company said its sales volumes have reached pre-COVID levels post a sharp fall in April during the nationwide lockdown. Zomato says it has delivered 92 million orders since March 23.
Kora is likely to make a bigger investment in Zomato in the coming months, sources told Livemint. However, the size of the investment is not known.
“Zomato’s current fundraising strategy is to woo more hedge funds for possible investments. Its plan on going public is making it an attractive proposition for these funds since they see faster exits. But whether the foodtech will be able to justify its valuation in the public markets is yet to be seen...hence, investors are taking a moderate approach,” the source cited above said.
In September, Zomato had $62 million funding from MacRitchie Investments, a unit of Singapore state investment arm Temasek, and a further $103 million from US-based hedge fund Tiger Global.
Zomato Founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal recently said that the food delivery sector is estimated to grow at nearly 15-25% month-on-month in the coming future.
Goyal said that larger metros such as Delhi and Mumbai are approaching full recovery, while cities like Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai are still behind the curve.
"The last few months have been full of shocks and surprises. We salute the hard work of our delivery partners, along with thousands of our restaurant partners who demonstrated great agility in implementing world class safety practices to ensure that our customers stay safe," Goyal further said.