According to Bloomberg News, food delivery network Zomato, owned by Deepinder Goyal, has made a bid to acquire e-commerce shipping firm Shiprocket. According to the article, Zomato has suggested a $2 billion acquisition of the company, which is also financed by Info Edge, Temasek, and Lightrock, though nothing has been finalized. Zomato, which also owns the rapid commerce platform Blinkit, is already a Shiprocket investor.
Shiprocket announced in November that its operating revenue would climb by 78% in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2023. The logistics startup claimed its operating revenue in FY23 was over Rs 1,089 crore, up from Rs 611 crore in FY22. Because of its numerous acquisitions, the startup's net loss increased by 3.6X. The logistics unicorn recorded a net loss of Rs 341 crore in FY23, a 266% increase over the previous fiscal year's loss of Rs 93.1 crore.
Shiprocket announced earlier this month that it intends to disburse approximately Rs 100 crore to small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) across the country via its financing platform in order to democratize access to collateral-free cash. In its pilot phase, the company provided access to essential growth capital to about 150 SMBs and disbursed over Rs 35 crore through Shiprocket Capital, with ambitions to disburse around Rs 100 crore by December 2024, according to a statement from the platform.
Saahil Goel, Vishesh Khurana, Akshay Gulati, and Gautam Kapoor started the firm in 2017 as an aggregator of third-party logistics companies. It collaborates with 17 different courier companies, including Delhivery, FedEx, Aramex, Xpressbees, DTDC, and Shadowfax. Temasek, Bertelsmann, Moore Strategic Ventures, PayPal, March Capital, and others have contributed approximately $270 million to the venture.
CLSA said in its most recent sector report that Zomato Ltd is its top selection in the consumer market because it believes that rapid commerce may be sustainable throughout cities in India, beyond metros and tier-1 cities. "With Blinkit achieving a positive contribution in Q2 FY24, we believe added scale as they expand their dark store network and city reach will drive positive adjusted Ebitda in FY25," the brokerage stated in a press release.
CLSA stated that Blinket's pricing are on average 23% lower than the maximum retail price (MRP), compared to 19% lower for Swiggy's Instamart and Zepto. CLSA stated that Blinkit had the lowest average per-product pricing but was the only rapid commerce competitor to charge a delivery cost in addition to a handling fee.
According to Zomato Q2 data, Blinkit turned contribution positive for the first time in Q2 FY24 in November. The contribution margin of the business, given as a percentage of GOV, rose from -7.3% in Q2 FY23 to +1.3% in Q2 FY24.
In August 2022, Zomato bought Blinkit (previously Grofers) and its storage and related services business. The acquisition of Blinkit was announced in June 2022 after the company's board of directors authorized the Rs 4,447-crore transaction. The auxiliary business was purchased for Rs 61 crore.
