Zomato infuses Rs 500 crore in quick commerce arm Blinkit

Zomato infuses Rs 500 crore in Blinkit

Blinkit, the quick commerce market leader, has received Rs 500 crore in fresh capital infusion from its parent company Zomato, according to filings made with the Registrar of Companies (RoC) sourced via Tofler, as competition continues to intensify in the rapid grocery delivery space.

The company’s board consented to the issuance of 2,537 equity shares at an issue price of Rs 19,70,181 each, amounting to a total of nearly Rs 500 crore, the filings showed. This brings Zomato’s total investment in its quick commerce arm to roughly Rs 2,800 crore.

The fund infusion comes hard on the heels of Zomato’s Rs 8,500 crore (just over $1 billion) fundraise through a Qualified Institutional Placement (QIP) in late November last year. Of this, a significant portion of the proceeds – Rs 2,137 crore – was to be directed towards expanding the operations of Zomato’s quick commerce unit Blinkit, particularly through investments in dark stores and warehouses.

The quick commerce firm saw a similar infusion of Rs 300 crore in June last year, after Zomato said Blinkit is the company’s most important business division, and will be even bigger than its core food delivery business. In fact, Blinkit’s implied valuation surpassed that of Zomato’s food delivery business back in April 2023.

The firm is currently a market leader in the quick commerce market, with a share of 46 percent, ahead of rivals Zepto and Swiggy Instamart, who occupy a market share of 29 and 25 percent, respectively, according to a recent report by Motilal Oswal.

Blinkit’s domination of the quick commerce segment is quite a turnaround from the time when the company hurtled from one crisis to the other before it was acquired by Zomato in 2022 for $568 million (Rs 4,477 crore).

Of late, Blinkit expansion plans have been put into high gear. It has hired former Flipkart executive Vipin Kapooria as its chief financial officer, and has outlined plans to open 2,000 darks stores in total by the end of 2026.

Its competitors have also adopted a similar approach of aggressive expansion. Swiggy Instamart has launched a separate app for quick commerce, and Zepto CEO Aadit Palicha has announced that the firm’s annualised gross order value (GOV) over the last eight months has tripled to around $3 billion (~Rs 24,500 crore).

For context, Blinkit’s annualised GOV is just a touch above Zepto’s at around Rs 24,528 crore, as of Q2 FY25.

Quick commerce players have also scaled beyond the traditional grocery category associated with rapid deliveries, to offer 15-minute food delivery as well. In fact,  Blinkit also launched a standalone app, Bistro, for 10-minute food deliveries, earlier this month, to compete more closely with Zepto Cafe, Swiggy’s Instacafe/Bolt and others.