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 $237.24 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. Invesco has cut the value of its holding in merchants payments startup Pine Labs, implying a valuation of $3.3 billion to the startup, down from the peak $5.5 billion.
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.