India-based food listings and delivery platform Zomato has entered talks with Ant Financial, e-commerce group Alibaba’s payment services affiliate, over a $600m funding round, the Financial Times has reported.
The round could value the company at more than $4bn, people familiar with the negotiations told the FT. It had raised a total of $690m as of March 2019 when it boosted its most recent round, which included a $210m investment from Ant Financial, to $315m.
The FT report came shortly after a separate report in the Economic Times stating that the $600m round would value the company at about $3bn and boost Ant Financial’s stake to almost 29%.
Zomato’s core business is an online restaurant listings platform with more than 100 million monthly active users across some 10,000 cities spanning 24 countries. It has also expanded into food delivery services.
The March 2019 round included $50m from online food delivery service Delivery Hero, $39.7m from growth equity firm Glade Brook Capital and additional capital from Shunwei Capital and Saturn Shine.
Ant Financial invested $150m in Zomato in March 2018 through a transaction that also involved it buying $50m of shares in the company from classified listings operator Info Edge.
Info Edge had initially invested $47m in Zomato in 2010 as its first major external investor, subsequently backing a series of rounds including a $50m series F in 2015. The company’s earlier backers include Temasek, Sequoia Capital and Vy Capital.
Ant Financial also owns a substantial stake in India-based payment and e-commerce company Paytm, and an increased investment in Zomato could form part of an effort to establish a mobile ecosystem in India mirroring the one owned it oversees with Alibaba in China.