SoftBank-backed Swiggy raises $700 mn from investors led by Invesco to grow grocery unit

tech.hindustantimes.com:

Indian food-delivery platform Swiggy raised $700 million from investors led by Invesco to expand its on-demand grocery service as demand rises. Investors participating also included Baron Capital Group, Sumeru Venture, IIFL AMC Late Stage Tech Fund, Kotak, Axis Growth Avenues AIF- I, Sixteenth Street Capital, Ghisallo, Smile Group and Segantii Capital, the startup said in a statement on Monday. Existing backers including Alpha Wave Global and Qatar Investment Authority also took part.

While Swiggy didn’t disclose its valuation publicly, the round values the company at $10.7 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. The round comes six months after the Bangalore-based startup raised $1.25 billion.

Backed by the likes of SoftBank Group Corp., Swiggy is among a slew of Indian startups disrupting traditional industries as more consumers venture online. It competes with fellow unicorn Zomato Ltd., which went public last year in a $1.3 billion initial public offering, and the food-delivery arm of Amazon.com Inc.’s India unit.

While Swiggy’s food-delivery business has almost doubled in gross order value in the past year, the startup is also expanding its Instamart grocery service. That now operates in 19 cities across the country.

Swiggy wants to lead the emerging quick grocery market, which typically means delivery within 10 to 30 minutes. Instamart is set to reach an annualized gross merchandise value run rate of $1 billion in the next three quarters, the company said.

“Our goal is to make Swiggy the platform that 100 million consumers can use 15 times a month,” Sriharsha Majety, co-founder and chief executive officer of Swiggy, said in the statement.

The company was founded in 2014 and connects users with over 185,000