Indian food delivery firm Zomato’s shares fell below 52 rupees apiece, giving it a market cap of $5.3 billion as tech stocks continue to nosedive across the globe. At a $5.3 billion market cap, Zomato is now trading below its last private valuation ($5.4 billion) from early 2021. Swiggy, Zomato’s chief rival in India and a much younger firm, was last valued at $10.7 billion.
The drop in the loss-making firm Zomato’s market cap, which comes at a time when markets across the globe are crumbling, may hurt the retail investors’ appetite for upcoming Indian IPOs of insurance firm LIC and delivery firm Delhivery. The market condition may also impact the timing of listings from several other Indian tech companies including budget hotel chain Oyo and financial services firm MobiKwik.
It’s all about perspective. If you were a Zomato employee and exercised your ESOP at ₹140 or higher price post IPO, you probably paid more cost per share as Income Tax, than what you can buy it today from market freely. At ₹56 / share price, markets are giving everyone ESOPs ;)
— Ashneer Grover (@Ashneer_Grover) May 9, 2022
Zomato, the first Indian consumer tech startup to go public last year, isn’t the only firm from the country that is performing poorly on the stock exchanges. Paytm’s market cap has dropped to $4.5 billion, down from $16 billion in a round from late 2019 and well below the $19 billion valuation at which it listed. (Worth giving a shoutout to Bernstein that had estimated Paytm’s valuation to swing between $21 billion to $24 billion.)
Online insurer PolicyBazaar’s market cap has fallen to $3.3 billion, down from the $6 billion valuation at which it filed its IPO. Online fashion commerce Nykaa, trading at $8.3 billion, is relatively doing better. The firm made its debut on the stock exchanges at $13 billion market cap.
In the country’s private market, things appear to be just as gloomy. Several major investors including Tiger Global and Canada Pension Fund have slowed down the pace of their investments. Tiger Global, a rainmaker in India’s unicorn story last year, is now mostly focusing on early-stage deals in the country and has become more conservative with how it prices rounds, according to several people familiar with the matter.
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