Motilal Oswal Financial Services co-founders Motilal Oswal and Raamdeo Agrawal have bought shares worth $100 million in quick commerce platform Zepto, according to sources. Each of them have bought shares worth $50 million in their personal capacity.
This comes at a time when Zepto is increasing its domestic ownership to 50% ahead of the initial public offering (IPO). According to sources, the domestic shareholding of the company would touch 35% after this secondary transaction.
Zepto is also in talks with Hero FinCorp and Edelweiss for a $250-million secondary round, the sources added.
Oswal and Agrawal will buy the shares from a pool of international investors, including Lachy Groom and Rocket Internet. The transactions were done at a valuation of $5 billion, unchanged from earlier.
In November last year, Zepto had raised $350 million from domestic investors at the same valuation, led by Motilal Oswal’s private wealth division, Raamdeo Agrawal, Abhishek Bachchan and Sachin Tendulkar, among others.
“The valuation was kept same to make it lucrative for domestic investors to buy,” one of the sources said.
Although a 50% domestic ownership is not mandatory, it provides the company with more flexibility in terms of decision-making.
Recently, Zepto’s rival Eternal, which owns Blinkit, also turned into an Indian owned and controlled company (IOCC). Following this, Blinkit is working on owning its inventory in the quick commerce business.
“We believe that is important and is another concrete step towards making our business more resilient in the long term,” said Eternal CFO Akshant Goyal in a letter to the shareholders.
Currently, all q-commerce firms operate on the marketplace model.
However, in a recent analyst call, Swiggy, which runs Instamart, has clarified that it is not aiming to convert into an IOCC anytime in near future as it does not offer much financial benefit.
“But it comes on the back of inventory holding on your balance sheet. So, it is a choice to be made on the commercial model,” Swiggy’s CFO Rahul Bothra said.
Zepto, which was the last to enter the market in 2021, has been on a fundraising spree for the past few quarters. In 2024 alone, the company raised around $1.35 billion. The proceeds are being used to expand its dark store footprint and grab more market share.
Currently, Blinkit is the market leader with 1.65-1.75 million orders in a day, while Zepto, in the second position, delivered 1.45-1.55 million orders a day. Instamart has about 1.05-1.15 million orders a day.