[Funding alert] Zomato raises $660M at post-money valuation of $3.9B

Zomato, the foodtech unicorn has raised $660 million in a financing round at a post-money valuation of $3.9 billion in what was financing round which was started last year.

The investors who participated in this J round of funding were – Tiger Global, Kora, Luxor, Fidelity (FMR), D1 Capital, Baillie Gifford, Mirae, and Steadview.

Zomato Co-founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal, in a series of tweets, talked about the funding and also about the upbeat performance of the company.

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The food tech unicorn had previously raised $212 million as part of Series J round from Ant Financial, Tiger Global, Baillie Gifford, and Temasek.

Deepinder said it is in the process of closing a $140 million secondary transaction on top of the $660 million and as part of this it has provided liquidity worth $30 million to its former employees.

The co-founder was also very upbeat on the performance of the company.

“Food delivery in India is rapidly coming out of COVID-19 shadows. December 2020 is expected to be the highest ever GMV month in our history. We are now clocking ~25% higher GMV than our previous peaks in February 2020,” Deepinder tweeted.

Zomato competes with the Bengaluru-headquartered food tech unicorn Swiggy in a highly competitive market even as Amazon has taken the first step into this segment within the launch of food delivery service in certain parts of Bengaluru.

These developments come amidst certain painful restructuring which both the foodtech unicorns had to undertake since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resultant lockdown. Both Swiggy and Zomato had announced certain employee restructuring measures which resulted in layoffs.

Given the developments, Zomato has talked about going for an initial public offering (IPO) in the first half of next year and was also building the war chest for future M&A, price wars from the competition.

Zomato has already acquired the food delivery business of Uber in India called Uber Eats.

As Deepinder stated in one of his tweets: “I am supremely excited about what lies ahead and the impact that we will create for our customers, delivery partners, and restaurant partners.”