Zomato to invest $400 mn in quick commerce over next two years

Foodtech firm will also set up NBFC to disburse credit to customers, restaurants and food delivery workers

Zomato said that it will continue to invest both in its core food business and in quick commerce –  and updated the upper bound of our potential investments in this category to $400 million cash over the next two years. 

It is also in the process of setting up an NBFC which will help it provide credit to customers, restaurants and delivery partners. According to media reports earlier today, the foodtech major is planning to offer its own buy now pay later service.

The company said that it has around $1.7 billion of cash on its balance sheet and has made cash investments worth around $225 million in the past year across three companies – Blinkit (erstwhile Grofers), Shiprocket and Magicpin. 

Blinkit has scaled up to around $450 million annual run rate of gross merchandise value (GMV)   and now operates with more than 400 dark stores across 20 cities in India. All of the former grocery delivery company’s business now is in quick commerce format with a median delivery time of around 12 minutes.

Zomato said that in the ongoing quarter (Q4), it has so far made two additional minority equity investments in UrbanPiper ($5 million) and Adonmo ($15 million).

UrbanPiper is a neutral tech infrastructure layer helping restaurants become food delivery-ready. “With our investment, we hope to leverage UrbanPiper’s penetration in the restaurant industry which will drive efficiencies of scale for all food delivery players in the country,” said Zomato founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal.

AdOnMo is building a unique tech-enabled hyperlocal ad-network, which can serve targeted and contextual ads to hyperlocal audiences. “Since Zomato was originally a local advertising business, we believe we can drive significant value to our shareholders through our investment in AdOnMo,” said Goyal.