Food delivery firm Swiggy raises $1 billion in Naspers-led funding round

MUMBAI/BENGALURU (Reuters) - Online food delivery company Swiggy said it had raised $1 billion in its latest funding round, led by South African internet group Naspers Ltd.

China's Tencent Holdings Ltd, Hillhouse Capital and Wellington Management Company also took part in the funding round, together with Swiggy's existing investors, DST Global, Meituan Dianping and Coatue Management, Swiggy said.

Naspers said in a statement it had invested $660 million in Swiggy during this latest round.

Swiggy, based in the southern Indian tech hub of Bengaluru, is valued at a little over $3 billion after this funding round, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The company did not respond to an email seeking comment on the valuation.

Naspers said its Swiggy investment showed it was committed to India across multiple sectors.

"Indian online consumers will be a significant driver of online growth in the world," it said.

Naspers' other investments in India include online classifieds firm OLX, online travel firm MakeMyTrip and payments company PayU.

Swiggy will use the funds to hire and strengthen its technology backbone, the company said.

The firm, which runs a mobile-based application and a website for food-delivery services, currently operates in more than 50 Indian cities.

It competes with homegrown riding-hailing firm Ola's Foodpanda, Uber's food delivery service, and China's Ant Financial Group-backed Zomato, which is valued at more than $1 billion.

Swiggy has raised a total of $1.26 billion since it was founded in 2014, including the latest round.

Naspers is in the middle of deploying a nearly $10 billion war chest to scale up its e-commerce ventures and make new investments in online classifieds, payments and food delivery platforms.

Cape Town-based Naspers earlier this year sold its 11.2 percent stake in Indian e-commerce company Flipkart to Walmart Inc.

But Naspers is still betting big on India and recently led a $540 million funding round in Indian edu-tech startup BYJU's.

(Reporting by Sankalp Phartiyal in MUMBAI and Krishna V Kurup in BENGALURU; Additional reporting by Tiisetso Motsoeneng in JOHANNESBURG; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Jane Merriman)