Swiggy invests $700M🤑, OLA plans IPO🚕, Freshworks loses $5.4 Bn📉
Swiggy invests $700M🤑, OLA plans IPO🚕, Freshworks loses $5.4 Bn📉
Swiggy to invest in quick delivery biz, Ola plans IPO in 2022, Freshworks loses $5.45 Bn m-cap, Funding Deals & more.
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Swiggy to invest $700 mn in quick delivery biz Instamart⏩
Swiggy, which is in the midst of raising larger funding round, said on Thursday it will invest $700 million in its express grocery delivery service Instamart as it looks to double down on non-food delivery categories.
The move signals Swiggy’s aim to grow its quick-commerce business amid intensifying competition in the 10-minute grocery delivery space. Grofers, backed by Swiggy’s arch-rival Zomato, had pivoted to a 10-minute grocery delivery model in August.
Swiggy’s Instamart service, which is currently operational in 18 cities across India, delivers more than one million orders per week. It plans to make deliveries across locations in 15 minutes by January by ramping up its network of dark stores.
Dark stores are physical warehouses that cater only to online orders. Swiggy partners with store owners to set up dedicated dark stores within a city for its Instamart business.
Ola plans IPO in the first half of 2022, readies 'super app'💪🏻
Ride-hailing company Ola plans to go public in the first half of 2022, chief executive officer Bhavish Aggarwal said on Thursday, undeterred by the recent volatility and lackluster listing of some startups in the country.
Ola, which has a majority share of India's ride-hailing market, where it competes with Uber Technologies, has plans to raise up to $1 billion through an IPO.
The Bhavish Aggarwal-led firm is also gearing up to create something of a "super app" with plans to broaden its services beyond mobility to include personal finance and micro insurance, Aggarwal told the Reuters Next conference.
Aggarwal also plans to list Ola's separate electric vehicle business in the future, and is currently building it out starting with its electric scooters, for which it has received 1 million reservations, he said.
It plans to launch an electric car in 2023 and is looking at setting up local battery cell manufacturing.
Hot Shorts⚡
Elevation Capital, an early investor in Swiggy, Paytm and Meesho, is said to be in talks to raise $600 million, barely a year after its last fund.
Early-stage venture capital firm 8i Ventures has launched its second fund under which it seeks to raise $50 million.
E-commerce startup BizzTm has raised $1.2 million in a seed round led by 2am VC, Axilor Ventures, Let’s Venture, IIMI Fund, Qua Capital and Incisive Ventures.
Microfinance.AI, a digital mobile platform for local-language, has raised $200K in its pre-seed funding round led by We Founder Circle.
Freshworks loses $5.45 billion market cap since declaring Q3 results📉
Freshworks Inc. had exactly a month ago toppled Zendesk Inc. in terms of market capitalization for the first time. Since then, however, it has been a slippery slope for the stock of India's SaaS poster child.
On November 2, shares of the Chennai- and San Mateo, California-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) company hit an intraday high of $53.35 per share, ascribing the company a market cap of $13.56 billion—about $1.4 billion higher than Zendesk's $12.1 billion on that day. But the stock has declined nearly 30% over the past month to $35.22 on December 1, eroding the company's valuation by $5.45 billion.
That's because of Freshworks' September quarter results declared on the same day. Net loss stood at $0.04/share against an estimated $0.10/share, even as revenue rose 46% to $96.6 million.
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