Swiggy, the food ordering and delivery app, became the latest entrant in the unicorn club, thanks to the funding by DST Global and Naspers. The food delivery startup has raised $210 million in its latest round of funding from Russian billionaire Yuri Milner's DST Global and existing backer Naspers. Coatue Management, US-based hedge fund and existing investor Meituan Dianping also participated in this round.
After this round of investment, the value of the food delivery app, Swiggy stands at $1.3 billion. This round of funding has made the Bengaluru-based firm one of the fastest internet companies to join the much-celebrated unicorn club in under four years since its inception - less than half the time it took rival Zomato to earn that tag.
The unicorn tag is given to a private firm having valuation more than $1 billion. In February, the value of Swiggy was $700 million when it raised $100 million from Naspers and Meituan Dianping. With the completion of this round, the total capital raised by Swiggy will cross $466 million. Swiggy will use the additional capital to ramp up its supply chain network, expand to new markets and scale its headcount, especially in the technology function.
As per industry sources, Swiggy is leading the food delivery market in India with around 11 million monthly orders followed by Zomato at about 7 million monthly orders across India and UAE. While UberEats clocks about 7, 50,000 orders per month, FoodPanda clocks about 1 million monthly orders as per industry sources. At $1.3 billion, Swiggy surpasses Zomato's valuation of $1.1 billion ascribed to the Gurgaon-based firm when it closed a $200 million funding round from Chinese online retailer Alibaba's payment affiliate Ant Financial.
Education Technology start-up BYJU was also a recent entrant in unicorn club before Swiggy. Policy Bazar, OYO Rooms and Pine Labs are also expected to cross $1 billion valuation mark when they close their next investment round later this year.
