Foodtech major Zomato crosses Rs 1 lakh crore mark on listing day

Food delivery platform Zomato made a spectacular debut in the stock markets, listing at a share price of Rs 116 on the National Stock Exchange – a 52.63 percent premium over its issue price of Rs 76 on Friday morning.

The company's shares were listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange at Rs 115, a 51.32 percent premium over the issue price quoted by Zomato in its recently concluded Initial Public Offering (IPO).

Zomato's shares were priced at Rs 125.15 per share on the BSE at 1.40 p.m., up 8.83 percent from the listing price. The market capitalization of the company was Rs 98,260.88 crore. The market as a whole was up 0.45 percent.

"Zomato had a super listing on the bourses. Given the low penetration, two large players in the market, falling advertising costs and company’s focus on the domestic market, growth as well profitability after initial cash burn will improve going ahead," said Vikas Jain, Senior Research Analyst at Reliance Securities.

The allotment of Zomato IPO shares was completed on Thursday, a day ahead of the scheduled date of July 27.

The Rs 9,375-crore IPO, which was open for subscription from July 14 to 16, was oversubscribed 38.25 times. The IPO received bids for over 2,751 crore equity shares, compared to the 71.92 crore share size.

Prior to the IPO, the company raised Rs 4,196.51 crore from 186 anchor investors.

Zomato is the first Indian unicorn startup to be publicly traded.

"Today is a big day for us. A new Day Zero. But we couldn’t have gotten here without the incredible efforts of India’s entire internet ecosystem", Deepinder Goyal, the company’s founder, and CEO said in a blog post on Friday.

"Jio’s prolific growth has set all of us up for unprecedented scale. Flipkart, Amazon, Ola, Uber, Paytm—have also over the years—collectively laid the railroads that are enabling companies like ours to build the India of the future," he said. "We stand proudly and humbly on the shoulders of giants, and we thank everyone for giving us, and so many other startups, the opportunity to look ahead into the future."

Goyal stated that Zomato will relentlessly focus on the next ten years and beyond,

and is "not going to alter our course for short-term profits at the cost of the long-term success of the company".

"The tremendous response to our IPO gives us confidence that the world is full of investors who appreciate the magnitude of investments we are making, and take a long-term view of our business," he added.

"Even in our hardest times, we’ve had half of our tech/engineering teamwork on long-term initiatives. And during the good times, we double down on the long term even harder.

"The only short-term work we do is whatever will earn us the right to continue building the future.  ..

Goyal also took the opportunity to thank long-term investors and former employees, including co-founder Pankaj Chaddha, with whom he founded the company in 2008.

“They say it takes a village to raise a child, and we are no exception. Hundreds of people have selflessly played a part in making Zomato what it is today,” he wrote.

Over the last 13 years since its inception as a restaurant discovery platform, the company has grown to become one of the two most dominant food delivery companies, with a presence in over 500 cities.

“I don’t know whether we will succeed or fail—we will surely, like always, give it our best. But I hope that the fact that we are here, inspires millions of Indians to dream bigger than we ever have, and build something way more incredible than what we can dream of”, Goyal said.

Zomato raised Rs 9,375 crore in public markets. Its recent IPO was 40.38 times oversubscribed, resulting in a demand of Rs 2.13 lakh crore, the highest in 11 years and the third-highest in Indian capital market history.

Also Read:

• Zomato raises Rs 4,196.51 crore from 186 anchor investors

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