US asset manager Invesco has raised its stake in Swiggy, valuing it at about $13.3 billion for the Indian food delivery and quick commerce startup that is set to go public in about a month.
In a disclosure on Tuesday, Invesco’s Developing Markets Fund said it valued its 28,844 shares in Swiggy as of the end of July 2024 at $237.24 million. The asset manager bought shares in Swiggy for $190.47 million.
Invesco invested in Swiggy in early 2022, leading a $700 million round in the Bengaluru-based startup. The round valued the company at $10.7 billion.
Invesco has been quite conservative with its assessment of its holdings in Swiggy. When the market fell in 2023, Invesco lowered its estimated value of Swiggy to $5.5 billion at the end of July 2023, and put it at around $12.3 billion at the end of April this year.
Firms use different methods to calculate the value of privately held companies. Typically, they use the market performance of publicly listed competitors to benchmark such companies. Zomato, Swiggy’s main competitor, has a market cap of between $22 billion and $30 billion in recent months.
Barron’s, another investor in Swiggy (although it owns a smaller stake in the food delivery startup than Invesco), valued the Indian firm at $15.1 billion at the end of March this year.
“Swiggy is, in our view, well-positioned to benefit from the structural growth in online food delivery in India,” Barron said in a letter in June. “We believe that India’s food delivery industry is still in its infancy and will continue to grow over the next several years thanks to a growing middle class, rising disposable income, greater smartphone penetration, and structural changes in consumer preferences. The younger demographic will continue to grow through Swiggy and Zomato, which bodes well for the company’s future profitability and scale.”
The markup in valuation comes at a time when many investors have written down their holdings in several Indian and overseas startups. Invesco has reduced the value of its holding in merchant payments startup Pine Labs, valuing the startup at $3.3 billion, down from a peak of $5.5 billion.
In a June update to its investors, wealth and asset manager 360 One said it valued VerSe, an Indian startup that runs popular news aggregator Dailyhunt, at $2.9 billion, up from $5 billion. is less than the price tag that VerSe raised in its last private round. April 2022.
360 One valued online meat and seafood retailer Licious at about $900 million and edtech company upGrad at $1.9 billion, TechCrunch previously reported.
Swiggy is seeking to raise as much as $1.4 billion in an IPO at a valuation range of $13 billion to $15 billion.
Credit : techcrunch.com
