Zomato to acquire online grocery delivery firm Blinkit

|HT|

Zomato, the popular online food delivery platform is going to acquire online grocery delivery firm Blinkit. Zomato - backed by Sequoia Capital and Jack Ma’s Ant Group among others - expects the market for quick deliveries to extend exponentially to include categories such as beauty and personal care, electronics, over-the-counter pharmaceuticals and stationery. It expects that demand for quick deliveries will grow in large Indian cities in the long term. The deal is worth ₹4,447 crore (about $570 million). This will be paid by Zomato in the form of shares in the parent company. However, it is still not clear whether it will be an ‘all-stock’ deal or not. It is being reported that the shareholders of Blinkit will get a roughly 7 per cent stake in Zomato at ₹70.76 per share. Blinkit - known for quick deliveries of groceries and essentials - is owned & managed by ‘Blink Commerce Private Limited’ which was formerly known as Grofers India Private Limited. Grofers essentially rebranded itself as ‘Blinkit’ as its CEO promised to speed up deliveries of everything from groceries to electronics, in a market dominated by e-commerce giants Flipkart and Amazon. Blinkit was one of the more than 40 unicorns - or startups valued at more than $1 billion, created in India last year. Zomato has previously invested in Blinkit in August last year, extending a loan of over $100 million for the quick-commerce entity. Zomato currently owns 9 per cent of the stakes in Blinkit and plans to keep the Blinkit app separate from the Zomato app after acquisition. “The acquisition of Blinkit’s tech platform, scale of business, third party brands and sellers, and its network of warehouses will help save costs for Zomato,” Chief Executive Officer Deepinder Goyal said.

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