Zomato's Deepinder Goyal sells personal stake in Blinkit to Tiger Global

Zomato founder and chief executive Deepinder Goyal has sold his personal stake in online grocery delivery firm Blinkit to New York-based hedge fund Tiger Global.

The move comes at a time when Blinkit looks to raise $500 million from the food delivery start-up.

It was first reported by Deal Street Asia, quoting Tiger Global's filing with Singapore's Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority.

As per the report, Goyal's first investment in Blinkit was made in 2015 and assuming share price of Blinkit's last fundraise of $67.48, Goyal is expected to have made $2.86 million through this deal.

The deal happened over six months after Zomato signed up to invest $120 million in Blinkit (then Grofers) along with Tiger Global at a valuation of over a billion dollars.

This was just ahead of Zomato's stellar public listing where it raised $1.25 billion comprising a fresh issue of equity shares worth Rs 9,000 crore and an offer-for-sale (OFS) worth Rs 375 crore by existing investor Info Edge.

This is the latest in a series of such moves. In December, Goyal also clarified that he had exited Shiprocket with "zero profit" before Zomato could invest in the logistics aggregator. Goyal had invested in Shiprocket earlier during the same year.

Last month too, Zomato invested in an ad tech firm Adonmo Pvt Ltd. In a disclosure to the stock exchange, Zomato said that early stage investment firm Bace Fund LP in which Goyal had an investment, was an existing investor in Adonmo. With an aim to clarify the positioning, the company said that Goyal's investment in the Bace Fund LP was of $1000,000 which was an "insignificant portion of the fund."

Zomato has set aside $1 billion to deploy across startups  over the next 1-2 years, with a major focus on the quick commerce space.

Besides investing $15 million in Adonmo, Zomato has invested $5 million in B2B software platform UrbanPiper Technology, $75 million in logistics aggregator Shiprocket, $50 million in Magicpin and $50 million in Curefit.

The company owns 9.3% of Blinkit where it invested $100 million. However, this deal was signed before the company got listed and announced its $1 billion war chest to invest in other startups.

Blinkit , which offers 10-minutes grocery delivery to customers, has set up 300 partner stores across the country through founder and CEO Albinder Dhindsa said in a blog on December 23. This happened soon after the company decided to pull the plugs in areas it wasn't able to deliver groceries in 10 minutes.

Quick commerce, which is defined as the delivery of items under 45 minutes, is the new battlefield as players look to outdo each other by reducing delivery time of essentials to minutes. The segment in India is expected to grow 10-15 times over the next four years to become a $5 billion market by 2025.