INDIA –  Swiggy, a food-ordering and instant grocery delivery platform, has closed a US$700 million funding round led by asset manager Invesco, the company said in a prepared statement on Monday.  

Citing people aware of the deal, ET Retail, reported that with the current round, the Bengaluru-based firm has almost doubled its valuation from its previous fundraise to US$10.7 billion 

The funding round follows an earlier fundraiser where  Swiggy had raised US$1.25 billion from SoftBank, Accel and existing investors Prosus, among others in April last year.  

It comes at a time when Swiggy is making in-roads in the much-contested instant grocery delivery space with its Instamart service. 

Last month in an interview with ET,  Sriharsha Majety, co-founder and chief executive  had said that the company is committing US$700 million to push its ultra-fast delivery business- Instamart.  

In December 2021, Instamart was clocking more than a million orders per week and was operating a network of 150 dark stores across 18 Indian cities. 

Swiggy now claims to operate its Instamart platform in 19 cities and expects Instamart’s annualised gross merchandise value (GMV) run rate to cross US$1 billion in the next three quarters 

Swiggy’s quick commerce vertical faces serious competition from Zomato-backed Blinkit (previously Grofers), six-month-old rival, Zepto, as well as Ola which also has started pilots for its instant grocery service in Bengaluru and Mumbai. 

Since December, Blinkit has added 200 “dark stores” that are designed only for deliveries in ten minutes.  

The Gurgaon-based company now plans to take the number of such mini distribution centres to 1,000 by March. 

Rival Dunzo is also expected to increase more competition in the q-commerce market after it recently secured a US$200 million investment from Reliance Retail Ventures Limited (RRVL), a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited.   

Majety is however confident that his company’s q-commerce division will hold its ground in the wake of increased competition.  

“The GMV (gross merchandise value) our food delivery business achieved in 40 months, took Instamart just 17 months, demonstrating the platform benefits of Swiggy,” said Majety.  

“We will double down on this to build more categories in line with our mission of offering unparalleled convenience to Indian consumers.”  

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