Prosus sees ‘very good’ returns on $8.6-billion India investment, upbeat on Swiggy, Rapido: CEO Fabricio Bloisi

Prosus sees ‘very good’ returns on $8.6 billion India investment, upbeat on Swiggy, Rapido: CEO Fabricio Bloisi

Dutch technology investor Prosus has invested $8.6 billion in India, a market where it continues to see “incredible opportunity”, chief executive officer Fabricio Bloisi said in a letter to shareholders.

The firm has already seen strong returns from marquee bets such as Swiggy and is now doubling down on high-growth companies such as Rapido, while lining up a fresh wave of initial public offering (IPO) candidates among its portfolio.

“India presents Prosus with incredible opportunity. In late 2024, Swiggy achieved a major milestone by going public. Recently, we invested in Rapido which is growing more than 100 percent year-on-year in ride hailing, and doing more than 3 million rides per day,” Bloisi said in the letter which summed by FY25 for the shareholders.

“We have invested $8.6 billion in India, we have seen a very good return already, and we continue to see a lot of opportunity in the region.”

Swiggy’s IPO was a major windfall for the investor, delivering $2.8 billion for its 31 percent stake, more than doubling the $1.3 billion invested. Prosus partially exited the food and grocery aggregator with a $500 million sell-down during the public offering.

Rapido is emerging as a fast-growing play in the ride-hailing space, with daily rides crossing the 3 million mark, the letter said.

In December, Prosus also committed $100 million to housing finance lender Vastu, and another $80 million in supply chain financing startup Mintifi, further diversifying its India portfolio.

The company is also discussing a $4 million-$5 million investment in Arivihan, an AI-based automated learning platform, Moneycontrol reported earlier.

The Netherlands-based firm is among the largest foreign investors in India, which has bet on companies such as BlueStone, Swiggy, Meesho, PayU, Urban Company, PharmEasy, and Eruditus.

Meesho, BlueStone, PayU and Urban Company are looking to launch IPOs in the near future, presenting several high-return opportunities to Prosus.

Performance across investments, however, has been mixed. According to the firm’s H1FY25 disclosures in December, ElasticRun, a B2B e-commerce platform, delivered the highest internal rate of return (IRR) for Prosus at 23 percent, followed by Meesho, PayU and Swiggy, all in the 20–21 percent range.

On the other hand, online pharmacy PharmEasy posted a negative IRR of 38 percent, while Eruditus returned 14 percent — the only profitable edtech investment in Prosus’ global portfolio.

Regardless, the company remains optimistic about the growth opportunities India presents, Bloisi said.