Zomato Raises Rs 4,196 Crore From Anchor Investors; IPO Gets Underway

Zomato has raised more than Rs 4,196 crore from anchor investors ahead of the initial public offering (IPO), which opened for bidding today. The food delivery service provider raised the money from 186 anchor investors, including New World Fund Inc, American Funds, Tiger Global Investments Fund, BlackRock Global, Lansforsakringar Asienfond, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley Investment Fund, T Rowe Price and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. Zomato plans to raise Rs 9,375 crore through the public offering, which will remain open for three days until July 14.

"We have received an extremely positive response from global and domestic institutional investors. The response puts a lot of responsibility on us and we hope that we will get a similar response from the retail and other domestic non-institutional investors as well," Gaurav Gupta, Founder & Head of Supply, Zomato said.

Zomato's IPO consists of a fresh issue of Rs 9,000 crore and an offer for sale of Rs 375 crore by the promoter, Info Edge India. Zomato has fixed the price band of the primary market offering at Rs 72-76 per share. Retail investors can bid for one lot of 195 shares, extending up to a maximum of 13 lots.

Zomato's share sale was subscribed as much as 36 per cent by 1:15 pm on the first day of the issue, data from the National Stock Exchange showed. The shares were in high demand among retail investors; the portion reserved for them was oversubscribed within hours of opening. However, the IPO witnessed tepid demand from qualified institutional buyers and non-institutional investors.

 A total of 75 per cent of the Zomato IPO is reserved for qualified institutional buyers, 15 per cent will be reserved for non-institutional investors and remaining 10 per cent for retail investors.

Zomato will used the IPO proceeds to fund organic and inorganic growth initiatives and for general corporate purposes.