The largest shareholders in Grofers, SoftBank Vision Fund, that may look forward to investing around $100-200 million in the merged entity.
The consumer internet market could see a probable big consolidation move, as Zomato is likely in talks to acquire online grocery retailing startup Grofers, in an all-stock deal, as per a national publication.
In the past few weeks, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Grofers has seen a heightened demand, and is expected to be valued at $750 million. SoftBank Vision Fund, the largest shareholders in Grofers, may be looking forward to investing in around $100-200 million in the merged entity. Uber is also an investee of SoftBank, where Uber had sold its India food delivery business to Zomato.
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This discussion seems to be bullish enough and comes at a time when if the transaction goes through, it would be the second big buyout made by Zomato that acquired the Indian operations of UberEats earlier this year. Backed by Ant Financial, Zomato is currently valued at $3.2 billion, on the other hand, Grofers was valued at $650 million, according to its last round of funding that was led by SoftBank Vision Fund in December last year.
It’s noted that Zomato wants to leverage its last-mile expertise in delivery, while also taking advantage of a wide range of private labels that is being manufactured by Grofers. Also, the margins in the grocery business are low, thus an added capital infusion from SoftBank would ve giving both companies ammunition to fight BigBasket that is backed by Alibaba, Swiggy, and likes of Amazon and Flipkart in the near future.
Additionally, the Indian e-grocery market has seen a bunch of these merger talks that are being held before as well, however, no deal has come through so far. Also, it was seen in 2017, that BigBasket and Grofers had also explored a potential merger while Amazon also had talks to acquire BigBasket, however, the discussion didn’t fructify to a deal.