Ant Financial Invests $210 million in Indian Delivery Unicorn Zomato

On Oct. 15, it was reported that Ant Financial, the financial arm of Alibaba Group made a $210 million of strategic investment in the Indian delivery startup Zomato.

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Founded in 2008, Zomato is an Indian version of Grubhub, providing delivery services and in-depth reviews on over 1.4 million restaurants across 23 countries. It allows users to search for and discover restaurants to eat out at or make online orders. The company is now in fierce competition with Swiggy, another online food delivery startup for market shares in India.

According to Sina Tech, after the investment, Zomato’s parent company Info Edge would hold 27.68 percent, dropping from 30.91 percent, while Ant Financial holds over 10 percent of the shares. The market valuation of Zomato will also rise from $1.1 billion to around $2 billion.

In fact, this is not the first time Ant Financial invests in Zomato. According to Reuters, in February this year, Ant Financial invested $1500 million in Zomato. In 2013, Zomato received $37 million of investment from Sequoia Capital and previous investors. In September 2015, the company received $60 million of financing from investors led by Temasek Holdings and Vy Capital.

The Indian delivery market has been a hot field for Chinese investors, attracting giants such as Meituan-Dianping, Didi Chuxing and Ctrip. In June this year, Swiggy received $210 million from its newest Series G funding, led by DST Global and South Africa’s Internet and entertainment group Naspers, with Meituan-Dianping as one of the participants. The funding pushed the valuation to $1.2 billion and made Swiggy a new member of India’s unicorn club.