Food and grocery delivery company Zomato has emerged as the most valuable company from the Indian startup ecosystem with a market capitalisation of $15.29 billion.
As trading began on Friday morning, Zomato's share price rose by 5% but it started declining later. At 11 am, it was trading at Rs 145.40 apiece—almost double its listing price of Rs 76 in 2021.
The Gurugram-headquartered company delivered upbeat numbers on Thursday, registering a net profit of Rs 138 crore for the third quarter of FY24, bouncing back from a loss of Rs 347 crore in the same period last year.
Ironically, after Zomato, the second most valuable company from the Indian startup ecosystem is its fierce market rival—Swiggy—valued at around $8 billion.
Today, Zomato—a publicly limited company with origins in the startup ecosystem—overtook Paytm and BYJU'S as the most valuable company to emerge from the startup ecosystem. Recently, the beleaguered fintech and edtech companies have seen their valuations nosedive.
Vijay Shekhar Sharma-led Paytm suffered a blow from the Reserve Bank of India which asked the fintech company to discontinue the operations of Paytm Payments Bank. Before its IPO in November 2021, Paytm was valued at $19 billion and has since then declined to $3.52 billion.
Bengaluru-based edtech company BYJU's witnessed one of the steepest drops in valuations after it announced a $200-million rights issue. It declined by 99% to $225 million compared to its previous funding round, which valued it at $22 billion.
The Byju Raveendran-led company, which is facing a cash shortage to run its operations, had to opt for the rights issue despite facing opposition from a certain section of its investors.
Meanwhile, Swiggy and Razorpay are the most valued unicorns after Zomato. Last month, Invesco, the US asset management company, raised the valuation of foodtech company Swiggy to $8.3 billion. Fintech startup Razorpay is valued at $7.5 billion after its $375-million fundraise in December 2021.
The Indian startup ecosystem boasts 112 unicorns, although an overwhelming majority are valued below $5 billion.
