India-based online food ordering service Zomato has provided a total of $175m for three domestic companies as part of an investment drive expected to reach $1bn in the next two years, TechCrunch has reported.
Zomato runs an online platform which allows users to order food for delivery from local restaurants, in addition to functioning as a guide and listings service for local eateries. The capital is set to be committed in one to two years, with a particular focus on on-demand e-commerce.
The company is investing $75m in logistics aggregator Shiprocket through a $185m round set to value it at $930m, according to a regulatory filing.
Shiprocket had raised $41.3m in a July 2021 round co-led by online payment services firm PayPal and media group Bertelsmann through their PayPal Ventures and Bertelsmann India Investments vehicles.
Classified listings operator Info Edge’s corporate venturing unit, Info Edge Ventures, also took part in the round, as did digital payment processor Razorpay, March Capital, Tribe Capital, Innoven Capital, Kunal Shah and Deepinder Goyal.
Zomato has also put up $50m to lead a $60m series D round for retail deal listings service Magicpin, acquiring a 16% stake in the process.
The round also featured existing investors including Lightspeed Venture Partners, which had joined RA Holdings, the Bunting Family and Moonstone Investments last month to supply it with $3m.
Magicpin’s overall funding stood at $41m as of a $7m series D round in July 2020 featuring Samsung Ventures, a corporate venturing subsidiary of consumer electronics manufacturer Samsung, in addition to Lightspeed Venture Partners and Waterbridge Ventures.
The corporate has also invested $50m in fitness booking platform developer CureFit and taken an additional $50m stake through the transition of fitness tracking app subsidiary Fisto to the company, and its share is now positioned at 6.4%.
Conglomerate Tata Group’s Tata Digital agreed in June this year to provide up to $75m for CureFit to hike its total debt and equity financing to $465m. Its existing backers include Unilever Ventures, the strategic investment arm of consumer goods provider Unilever.
Zomato had supplied an amount it said last week was $100m for online grocery retailer Grofers through a $120m round in June this year backed by Tiger Global Management.
