Zomato Is Raising $210 Million From Alibaba’s Alipay Singapore

Zomato has signed a definitive agreement to raise a primary funding of $210 million (roughly Rs. 886 crores) from Alibaba's online payment platform Alipay Singapore. The latest funding comes weeks after the food-ordering platform announced the acquisition of TongueStun, a Bengaluru-based startup that serves corporate catering space in six Indian cities, including Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune, Mumbai, and Gurugram/ Noida. A regulatory filing by Info Edge (India) has revealed the latest Alipay investment in Zomato. An official spokesperson has also confirmed the move in response to an email query by Gadgets 360, without offering any additional comments.

"[W]e would like to bring to your knowledge that Zomato has signed a definitive agreement to undertake a primary fund raise of approximately $210 million from Alipay Singapore Holding Pte Ltd (which is an existing shareholder of Zomato) and/ or any of its affiliates, and upon the closing of this fund raise," the regulatory filing reads.

Info Edge (India) held 30.91 percent of the share capital of Zomato that has now been reduced to about 27.68 percent on "fully converted and diluted basis", as per the filing available on the BSE website.

In March, Zomato raised $150 million (roughly Rs. 1,109 crores) from China's Alibaba Group Holding at a valuation of more than $1 billion (roughly Rs. 7,400 crores). Ant Financial Services Group, Alibaba's payment affiliate, additionally bought $50 million (roughly Rs. 369 crores) worth of shares in secondary purchases.

Launched in 2008 as a restaurant listing service, Zomato is presently available across 41 cities in India and has since added food ordering and table booking to its portfolio of services. The company is also touted to have over 54,000 restaurants on its platform and has 74,000 executives to fulfil its delivery requirements, as per the latest data provided by the company. It competes against the likes of Swiggy, Uber Eats, and Foodpanda that all are among the popular entities in the online food ordering market in India.