Swiggy May Raise Fresh $600 Mn from Existing Investor Naspers

India's biggest food ordering and delivery company, Swiggy, could raise a fresh round of funding close to $600 million or even more marking its biggest fundraise to date. The speculated funding will be born by Swiggy's existing investor and largest share holder Naspers of South Africa, reported Bloomberg today, citing people privy to the ongoing development at Naspers.

Naspers, which is planning to increase its stake in Swiggy, could also buy stakes from Swiggy's other existing investors such as Bessemer Venture Partners, said the report. Nasper has 22% stake in Swiggy, as of March 2018.

Besides Nasper, Tencent Holdings Ltd. can also participate in this possible fundraise of Swiggy. It is to be noted that Naspers owns a 31% controlling stake in Tencent.

If this funding falls through then this will be Swiggy's third round of funding within a year. The food delivery startup had last raised $210 million in June this year and funding round was led by Digital Sky Technologies and Naspers. Prior to this, Swiggy had raised $100 million again from Naspers, along with China's Meituan-Dianping.

This plausible fundraise report comes at time when just a few days back Swiggy's biggest India rival Zomato had raised a fresh capital of $210 million from Alibaba's payment affiliate Ant Financial.

Naspers, which also has shares in India's travel firm MakeMyTrip and classifieds business OLX, has targeted India for investments as the company seeks to repeat its Tencent and Flipkart success. Notably, the company made a $1.6 billion profit from the sale of its 11% stake in Indian e-commerce startup Flipkart to Walmart, earlier this year.

Swiggy, which currently valued at more than $2 billion, is also planning to enter hyperlocal delivery market with its upcoming service called 'Dash', through which it will deliver medicines and grocery.

Founded in 2014, by Sriharsha Majety, Nandan Reddy and Rahul Jaimini, Swiggy is one of the fastest entrants into the billion dollar club and raised a total of $465 million since it started.

EArlier this month, it was also reported that UberEATS, the food delivery unit of Uber, had held talks with Swiggy for possible acquisition of later, a few months ago. However, the acquisition could not materialize and now Swiggy is reportedly closing a fresh funding round from Chinese investor and WeChat owner Tencent.

Meanwhile, Zomato is building its own digital wallet to prevent its users going out of its ecosystem while making payments online.

[Top Image - AdageIndia.com]

Swiggy Raises $100 Mn In A Funding Led By Naspers and China's Meituan

Swiggy, India’s leading food ordering and delivery platform, announced today that it has raised USD 100 million in Series F funding, its largest round yet. Led by Naspers, a global internet and entertainment group, and one of the world’s largest technology investors, the Series also includes new investor Meituan-Dianping, China's largest service e-commerce platform.

Swiggy will use the freshly raised funds to introduce new products and services and further expand its supply chain business, New Supply, which launched late last year.

With the latest funding, Swiggy's has now raised total of $255 million till date, with a previous $70 million round also led by Naspers to launch Swiggy into markets across India. Part of that capital also went to acquire the gourmet Indian food startup 48East.

Sriharsha Majety, Swiggy’s chief executive, said in a statement, “With this funding, we will further invest in building differentiated offerings, plugging the white spaces in the ecosystem, and developing our technology while keeping superlative customer experience at the core.”

Previous investors in Swiggy include Harmony Partners, Accel Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Softbank’s SAIF Partners.

Earlier this week, Swiggy launched its operations in Jaipur by roping in over 300 restaurants in the city.

The platform is now present in Mumbai, Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru, Chennai, Pune, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Jaipur and Chandigarh.

Swiggy has more than 20,000 restaurant partners across cities in the country. It was last valued at $400 million when Naspers led a $80-million investment in May 2017.

Incidentally, with this funding one can expect more cut throat competition in India's food delivery segment as Swiggy's biggest competitor Zomato has too recently raised whopping $200 million from Alibaba affiliate Ant Financial. Additionally, British food delivery unicorn startup Deliveroo entering the Indian market to heat up India's food delivery space.

Moreover, according to a report by Morgan Stanley, Gurgaon-based Zomato has shot up its valuation to US $2.5 billion, which is thrice of its last valuation.

Swiggy Raises $100 Mn In A Funding Led By Naspers and China's Meituan

Swiggy, India’s leading food ordering and delivery platform, announced today that it has raised USD 100 million in Series F funding, its largest round yet. Led by Naspers, a global internet and entertainment group, and one of the world’s largest technology investors, the Series also includes new investor Meituan-Dianping, China's largest service e-commerce platform.

Swiggy will use the freshly raised funds to introduce new products and services and further expand its supply chain business, New Supply, which launched late last year.

With the latest funding, Swiggy's has now raised total of $255 million till date, with a previous $70 million round also led by Naspers to launch Swiggy into markets across India. Part of that capital also went to acquire the gourmet Indian food startup 48East.

Sriharsha Majety, Swiggy’s chief executive, said in a statement, “With this funding, we will further invest in building differentiated offerings, plugging the white spaces in the ecosystem, and developing our technology while keeping superlative customer experience at the core.”

Previous investors in Swiggy include Harmony Partners, Accel Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Softbank’s SAIF Partners.

Earlier this week, Swiggy launched its operations in Jaipur by roping in over 300 restaurants in the city.

The platform is now present in Mumbai, Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru, Chennai, Pune, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Jaipur and Chandigarh.

Swiggy has more than 20,000 restaurant partners across cities in the country. It was last valued at $400 million when Naspers led a $80-million investment in May 2017.

Incidentally, with this funding one can expect more cut throat competition in India's food delivery segment as Swiggy's biggest competitor Zomato has too recently raised whopping $200 million from Alibaba affiliate Ant Financial. Additionally, British food delivery unicorn startup Deliveroo entering the Indian market to heat up India's food delivery space.

Moreover, according to a report by Morgan Stanley, Gurgaon-based Zomato has shot up its valuation to US $2.5 billion, which is thrice of its last valuation.

Naspers Increases Stake in Foodpanda Parent Delivery Hero

Delivery Hero, the leading global online food ordering and delivery marketplace, has announced that Naspers increased its stake in Delivery Hero from 10.6 percent to 23.6 percent by acquiring 22,359,857 shares that were previously held by Rocket Internet for an amount of $775M.

Naspers is one of the largest internet investors in the world, holding minority stakes in digital players such as Tencent, Mail.Ru or Flipkart.

Niklas Östberg, CEO of Delivery Hero, said, “We know the Naspers management team for a couple of years and built very close and trustful relationships. They came in as a long-term shareholder, committed to Delivery Hero, committed to the vision and values of our company and management team. We are excited about their willingness to increase their stake as they have seen our business develop.”

Bob van Dijk, CEO of Naspers, said, “Delivery Hero is already the leading online food ordering and delivery marketplace in most of the countries in which it operates and our increased investment demonstrates our confidence in the long-term prospects for the company. The food delivery sector is still underpenetrated and growing rapidly across the world. Many markets have experienced significant traction already, but we believe the potential is far greater in high-growth markets than that observed in the West.”

The transaction is subject to regulatory approval, will be funded from existing resources, and is expected to close in the first quarter of 2018.

Delivery Hero is the leading global online food ordering and delivery marketplace with number one market positions in terms of restaurants, active users and orders in more countries than any of its competitors and online and mobile platforms across 40+ countries in Europe, the Middle East & North Africa (MENA), Latin America and the Asia-Pacific region. Delivery Hero also operates its own delivery service primarily in 60+ high-density urban areas around the world. The Company is headquartered in Berlin and has over 6,000 employees in addition to thousands of employed delivery drivers.

OLX’s Founder & CEO Amarjit Singh Batra Plans to Move to a Global Role Within Naspers

OLX India announced today that Amarjit Singh Batra, the CEO and founder of the OLX India business, is planning to move within Naspers for his next adventure. Amar joined OLX in 2008, and has been instrumental in building OLX India as the undisputed market leader as well as a household name.

Batra joined OLX at a time when consumer Internet businesses in India were at a nascent stage, and the concept of second-hand buying and selling between individuals was almost unknown. Starting out as the first employee of OLX India, he has built the business from scratch to a 550-strong-team today.

Batra not only pioneered the consumer-to-consumer (C2C) classifieds business in India but also led OLX to become the largest classifieds platform in the country commanding 80% market-share of the C2C classifieds business, and a brand-awareness that has now been consistently seven times or more than that of the closest competitor. Apart from introducing India to selling and buying of pre-owned household items, Batra also led OLX to emerge as the biggest platform for pre-owned cars in the country commanding 72% market-share of the pre-owned car trade. Other key categories that thrived under his leadership were that of pre-owned motorcycles, where OLX has 75% market-share of the online trade, and mobile phones, where OLX commands 50% market share. Real Estate and Jobs are also categories that he built from a horizontal perspective, giving OLX an underlying advantage in the space.

At OLX he is known for his innovative approach, implicit understanding of the consumer needs, and a passion for building business solutions that can solve everyday challenges and make the user experience more friction-free. A visionary, he built OLX with a mobile-first approach at a time when many other businesses were still focused on desktop. This helped in laying strong foundations for business growth at an early stage. He was also the first in his space to take the decision of experimenting with customized colloquial regional-language television advertising - rather than using dubbed Ads for all markets - in order to reach out to a new consumer base. These are just a few examples of how he thought and led.

It was under his leadership that OLX India introduced an improved version of the OLX App last year that made buying and selling more simple, secure, and social. The new App that leveraged artificial intelligence and machine learning has resulted in the strongest year yet for OLX. In the last 10 months, Unique Sellers have grown by more than 70%, Buyers by 200%, and Daily Active Users (DAU) by 100% with a 50% growth in stickiness and engagement.

Under Batra’s leadership, OLX has outdistanced the No. 2 player in the space by a wide margin. OLX now has almost 14 times the DAUs on the App that the No. 2 player does (Source: Similar Web), 7 times the brand awareness they do (Source: Google Trends) and 9 times the Unique Listers they do in the Goods and Cars Categories.

Said Martin Scheepbouwer, Global CEO of OLX Group, “I started working with Amar five years back when I joined Naspers, and he has impressed me with his entrepreneurial drive, passion, focus and his ability to deliver on big challenges. India is a huge and diverse market, and the way OLX India has shaped up to become an undisputable leader in the horizontal classifieds space is a testimony to Amar’s vision, strategy, and execution. What I am most pleased with is the strong leadership team and culture that Amar has built at OLX India, which has laid a solid foundation for taking the company to the next level. I take this opportunity to thank him for the great work and support him on his plans to take up a new challenge. While he will move on, his legacy will live on in the brand, team, and the culture he has built.”

Said Amarjit Singh Batra CEO, OLX India, “The OLX journey has been a very special and fulfilling one. Rarely does one get an opportunity as an entrepreneur and a leader to build a brand like OLX and take it from obscurity to a household name. In the almost nine years that I have spent at OLX, I feel I have done the whole nine yards. In these years OLX has emerged as the number one horizontal marketplace outperforming all direct competitors. On the back of a robust and innovative product, we have delivered our strongest year yet. I started out alone in India for almost 3 years but today I have a team of great leaders who are poised to take the business to even greater heights. I have also spent a lot of time in building a culture that not only keeps the brand mission alive but also makes OLX a great place to work. I feel like I have achieved the mission I took up nine years back, and that the time is opportune to end this leg of the journey and take up a new challenge. Naspers has a wide footprint and several exciting opportunities in emerging markets that I am exploring at the moment.”

“The person who will be coming in place of Amar has some big shoes to fill. We are working on the transition, and will be ready to share the successor’s name soon,” added Scheepbouwer.

Swiggy Raises $80M in Series E Funding Led by Naspers

Swiggy, Indian food ordering and delivery platform, announced today that it has raised $80 million in series-E funding. The deal was led by Naspers, a global internet and entertainment group, and one of the world’s largest technology investors, with earlier investors Accel India, SAIF Partners India, Bessemer Venture Partners, Harmony Partners and Norwest Venture Partners participating. Ashutosh Sharma, head of investments in India for Naspers will join the Swiggy board.

The new funds will propel the next phase of Swiggy’s growth by introducing a suite of new product and service offerings to enhance its superlative customer experience. Swiggy also announced plans to double its technology headcount and increase investments across core engineering, automation, data sciences, machine learning and personalisation.

This investment demonstrates Naspers’ commitment to Swiggy retaining its leadership position in food ordering and delivery across India. Adding to this, Ashutosh Sharma, head of investments in India, Naspers said “Swiggy has shown impressive growth in a highly competitive market. Naspers was attracted to the company’s exceptional execution in disrupting online food ordering and delivery in India while many players are struggling. Their ability to create a sustainable business, earning consumer trust through a reliable first-party delivery technology, positions them well for success.”

Swiggy has become a loved consumer brand by bringing convenience, choice, reliability and a great experience to food-ordering. This has resulted in a six-fold growth in revenues over the last year and industry-best repeat orders, a key metric indicating the loyalty of the brand with consumers. The continuous focus on delivering an outstanding consumer experience has fuelled Swiggy’s growth across each of the cities it operates in.

“In a span of three years, Swiggy has been instrumental in changing the way India eats by delivering delightful customer experiences. This investment by Naspers is further testimony to Swiggy’s vision and performance,” said Sriharsha Majety, co-founder and CEO, Swiggy. “As the market leader, we are leveraging our deep understanding of the Indian consumer and the gaps in the market to introduce disruptive and highly differentiated service offerings; making online food ordering and delivery more seamless and reliable to users everywhere.”

Swiggy has been a forerunner in online food ordering and delivery in India, by consistently shrinking delivery times and improving customer experience. The fastest food delivery service in the country, Swiggy’s average delivery time is an industry benchmark of 37 minutes. Swiggy has also unlocked the business potential for partner restaurants across eight locations in India, including Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Chennai.

Naspers Invests $60M in Udemy to Expand Global Reach

Udemy, a global marketplace for learning and teaching online, has announced a strategic investment of $60 million from Naspers through its Naspers Ventures division. Larry Illg, CEO of Naspers Ventures, is joining Udemy’s Board of Directors.

The company plans to use the new capital to continue its strong international momentum, including growing its localized course content library and product offerings to meet the global demand for online learning. The investment is a follow-on to Udemy’s $65 million Series D round of financing from June of 2015.

Over the past year, Udemy has experienced significant growth, particularly among its international business. With more than 40,000 courses now available in 80 different languages, the firm offers the largest selection of online course content.

Key milestones this year for Udemy include:

• Surpassing 11 million students and 20,000 instructors worldwide


• Surpassing 50 million enrollments from students in more than 190 countries


• Expanding its executive management team with the addition of Grégory Boutté, VP of Content; Rob Wong, VP of Product; and Darren Shimkus, VP and General Manager of Udemy for Business


• Acquiring Talentbuddy, a learn-to-code platform, to boost experiential learning capabilities


• Launching strategic international partnerships including Estácio (Brazil), Bloter (South Korea), Bayt.com (Middle East), and STJobs (Singapore)

“With two-thirds of our students and over half of our instructors located outside the U.S., Udemy has made huge strides in opening access to learning and teaching opportunities worldwide, yet we are just at the beginning of realizing the full potential of online learning,” said Dennis Yang, CEO of Udemy. “We’ve reached a critical juncture in our global economy where everyone needs to embrace lifelong learning and take initiative for upskilling themselves. That’s why I’m thrilled to be partnering with Naspers to invigorate our efforts to bring Udemy to even more learners and experts around the world.”

Naspers, a global internet and entertainment company with operations in 130 countries, has the local expertise to help Udemy build its growing international presence. The company has made investments in internet companies, including Tencent and Flipkart, that 1.3 billion people worldwide already use. Naspers provides its companies with unmatched levels of international support, including strong business strategy expertise, operating experience, and access to on-the-ground resources in key expansion markets.

“Naspers is consistently looking to invest in markets where technology can make a significant impact. Udemy has built a technology platform that will transform education on a global scale and we are eager to help them with further expansion,” said Larry Illg, Naspers Ventures CEO. “Their online learning marketplace offers courses on thousands of topics in dozens of languages and makes education for anyone, anywhere more accessible.”

Naspers Ventures joins existing investment partners, including Stripes Group, Norwest Venture Partners, Insight Venture Partners, and Lightbank.