Swiggy raises $43m in Series I round, funds likely to be used to expand new business; company's valuation goes past $3.65 bn

Swiggy, the country’s online food delivery platform, reportedly raised $43 million (Rs 327 crore) in its ongoing Series 1 funding round to expand the business, said a news report. The fund raising is led by existing investor Chinese internet giant Tencent. Ark Impact Asset Management, Korea Investment Partners (KIP) and MACM India Growth Fund are the new investors, said a report in Moneycontrol. [caption id=“attachment_5110471” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. News18.[/caption] Tencent infused Rs 142 crore, Ark Investment more than Rs 70 crore, KIP Rs 35 crore and MACM Growth Fund invested Rs 14 crore, the report said citing regulatory filings accessed by business intelligence firm Tofler. The latest investment takes Swiggy’s total round size to $156 million and the company’s value stood over $3.6 billion. A report in The Economic Times said that the latest fund-raising comes about 45 days after Swiggy raised  $113 million led by South African internet giant Naspers, along with Hadley Harbour Master Investments and Meituan Dianping. The company plans to use these funds to further expand its new businesses and continue to invest in grocery delivery, concierge services, and micro-delivery arm SuprDaily, the report said. In January this year, it was reported that Zomato was raising $150 million from Ant Financial , an Alibaba affiliate, at a valuation of $3 billion for the food delivery startup. Zomato’s top shareholder Info Edge (India) Ltd said in a filing on Friday that after the funding its stake will drop to about 25.13 percent. It had a 26.38 percent stake, as of March last year. The fund infusion comes as Zomato pushes for a bigger market share in the highly competitive Indian food delivery space in a race with rivals such as Tencent-backed Swiggy and Uber’s UberEats. The Gurugram-based restaurant aggregator recorded a loss of $294 million in the year ending March, compared with a loss of $12 million a year earlier as it burnt more cash in its Indian delivery business to grab new customers, unaudited figures from its annual report showed. –With inputs from Reuters