Invesco raises its valuation of Swiggy to $13.3B

U.S. asset manager Invesco has raised the value of its stake in Swiggy, ascribing an implied valuation of about $13.3 billion to the Indian food-delivery and quick-commerce startup that is on track to go public in about a month.

In a disclosure on Tuesday, Invesco’s Developing Markets Fund said it valued the 28,844 shares it owns in Swiggy at $219.25 million as of the end of July 2024. The asset manager bought the shares in Swiggy for $190.47 million.

Invesco invested in Swiggy in early 2022, leading a $700 million round in the Bengaluru-based startup. The round valued the company at $10.7 billion.

Invesco has been fairly conservative with its assessment of its holdings in Swiggy. When the market dipped in 2023, Invesco lowered its estimated value of Swiggy to $5.5 billion at the end of July 2023, and held it at about $12.3 billion at the end of April this year.

Firms use different methodologies to calculate the valuation of privately-held companies. Generally, they use the market performance of a publicly listed rival to benchmark such companies. Zomato, Swiggy’s chief rival, has had a market cap between $22 billion and $30 billion in recent months.

Baron, another investor in Swiggy (though it owns fewer shares in the food delivery startup than Invesco), valued the Indian firm at $15.1 billion at the end of March this year.

“Swiggy is well positioned to benefit from structural growth in online food delivery in India, in our view,” Baron said in a letter in June. “We believe India’s food delivery industry is still in its infancy and will continue to scale over the next several years thanks to a growing middle class, rising disposable income, higher smartphone penetration, and structural shifts in consumer preferences driven by a tech-savvy, younger population. The industry has also become a duopoly between Swiggy and Zomato, which bodes well for the future profitability and scale of the company.”

The mark up in valuation comes at a time when many investors have cut the value of their holdings in several Indian and overseas startups. In a June update to its investors, wealth and asset manager 360 One said it valued VerSe, an Indian startup that operates the popular news aggregator Dailyhunt, at $2.9 billion, down from the $5 billion price tag at which VerSe raised its last private round in April 2022.

360 One ascribed a valuation of about $900 million to online meat and seafood retailer Licious, and $1.9 billion to edtech company upGrad, TechCrunch previously reported.

Swiggy is seeking to raise as much as $1.4 billion in the IPO at a valuation range of $13 billion to $15 billion.