Global technology hedge fund, Coatue Management, is in talks to buy stakes worth $ 100 million from home grown online food delivery giant, Swiggy. This move comes two months after South African media giant, Naspers and China based e commerce firm, Meituan Dianping, invested $ 100 million in this Bengaluru based startup.
A technology focused hedge fund, the New York based Coatue Management is led by former Tiger Management executive, Philippe Laffont and has over $ 15 billion in assets under management at the moment. Its interest in the Indian Internet ecosystem follows the penetration of affordable data in India. This move will help deepen customer acquisition through deeper penetration.
Swiggy has also been receiving a lot of attention from investors like SoftBank and Tencent. To make matters interesting, the online food delivery platform has partnered with digital payments facilitator, PhonePe. The two have collaborated to build a one tap check out process to make online payments a seamless process.
At the moment, this app is being tested in the beta version and is only available on its Android applications. The app will be available on Swiggy’s website, mobile site and iOS app in a few weeks. This is the first step for PhonePe in the Indian food delivery market. With Zomato receiving $ 200 million in funding recently, Swiggy is working at making sure it stays one step ahead of its competitors like UberEats and Foodpanda.
On the business front, Swiggy has posted a record increase of 500% in revenues in the last financial quarter. In light of the newly formed association between Swiggy and PhonePe, the possibilities of synergies between these three cannot be negated. With this round of funding, Swiggy plans on introducing new features, reduce delivery time and on hiring new drivers to make sure more orders are completed on a day to day basis.
