India food delivery unicorn Zomato opens $1.2bn IPO
image for illustrative purpose
Food delivery app Zomato, one of India's biggest tech start-ups, has gone on sale with a $1.2bn (£870m) initial public offering or IPO.
It raised $562.3m from institutional investors - they bid for 35 times more shares than allotted to them - ahead of the much-awaited offering. Zomato, backed by Jack Ma's Ant Group, is the first of India's major digital start-ups to issue an IPO.
And more are expected. India has been throwing up unicorns, private firms valued at over $1bn (74.5 billion rupees), at a fast pace and many of them, such as mobile payments app, Paytm and retail firm, Nykaa, are expected to make a stock market debut in the coming months. Zomato's three-day offering - with shares priced between 72 to 76 rupees per share - is expected to take the company's valuation to $9 billion. Trading in the stock is likely to begin on 27 July.
Launched in 2008 by Deepinder Goyal, Zomato offers food delivery and curates restaurant reviews. It's available in 525 cities and caters to some 6.8 million customers every month - and has become a household name in India.
