Invesco boosts Indian food delivery startup Swiggy’s valuation to $7.8 billion after cutting it to $5.5B in May

US investment firm Invesco Inc. has made a substantial upward revision in its valuation of Indian food delivery startup Swiggy, raising it to $7.8 billion. This adjustment comes after it had marked down the valuation to $5.5 billion back in May of this year.

The reassessment was made by Invesco in July, with their $190-million investment in the food delivery giant now valued at $136 million, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing by one of Invesco’s investment funds.

This valuation marks an increase from the previous fair value, which stood at approximately $5.5 billion as of the end of January this year, following a decline from its valuation of $8 billion in October 2022. However, it’s important to note that this new valuation is still beneath Swiggy’s peak valuation of $10.7 billion, which was achieved when it raised $700 million in January 2022.

In comparison, Swiggy’s valuation is also lower than that of its publicly-listed rival, Zomato Ltd., which concluded trading on Tuesday with a market capitalization of Rs 98,404 crore, equivalent to $11.7 billion. This upward revision in Swiggy’s valuation aligns with the announcement from its CEO, Sriharsha Majety, that the core food delivery business had turned profitable by March 2023.

Data and Image Source: UBS

In a blog post in May, Majety wrote:

“As of March 2023, Swiggy’s food delivery business has turned profitable (after factoring in all corporate costs; excluding employee stock option costs)…Swiggy has become one of the very few global food delivery platforms to achieve profitability in less than nine years since its inception.”

We covered Swiggy back in January 2022 after the oftBank-backed Swiggy raised $700 million in funding led by U.S. investment firm Invesco. The round was joined by Baron Capital Group, Sumeru Venture, IIFL, and Kotak. Existing investors Alpha Wave Global and Qatar Investment Authority also participated in the round.

Founded in 2014 by Nandan Reddy, Phani Kishan Addepalli, Rahul Jaimini, and Sriharsha Majety, Swiggy has made a name for itself as an on-demand food delivery platform, connecting customers with their favorite dishes from nearby restaurants, delivered right to their doorstep. A significant funding round in July 2021, led by SoftBank, valued the company at $5.5 billion.

Swiggy’s venture Instamart competes with industry heavyweights such as Tata-owned BigBasket and Blinkit, formerly known as Grofers (in which Swiggy’s competitor, Zomato Ltd., holds a stake). Rivals also include Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Fresh and Reliance Industries-owned JioMart.

Swiggy’s food delivery platform offers a user-friendly app, that showcases local restaurants and their menus for customers to place orders and easily track the delivery progress. Beyond food, the company’s services extend to picking up and delivering a diverse range of items, including handling laundry and facilitating the delivery of documents or parcels, catering to both business clients and retail customers.