The leading Indian venture capital firm Sequoia Capital India has reduced its investment in the online food aggregator Zomato from 6.41 percent to 4.4 percent by selling 17.2 crore shares in the open market in two separate deals.
In a recent SEC filing, Zomato revealed that Sequoia Capital India had sold 6.7 crore shares between September 6 & October 14, 2021, as well as 10.5 crores shares between June 27 to August 25, 2022.
Zomato claims that the stock sales were completed by Sequoia Capital India Growth Investment Holdings I & SCI Growth Investments II.
In addition to the 45,153,346 additional equity shares it acquired on August 10 as a result of the acquisition of quick-commerce delivery service Blinkit, Sequoia Capital India Investments IV also obtained a one-year lock-in on the Blinkit transaction.
With the stock of the online food delivery company Zomato getting pummeled, Sequoia Capital India has joined the ranks of private market investors who have dumped their holdings in the company through open market sales or block deals over the previous few months.
Zomato stock was last seen trading at about Rs 61.85 on Friday.
At the beginning of this month, ride-hailing service Uber sold a 7.8 percent share in Zomato for roughly $390 million.
After losing almost $707 million on its Zomato investment during the first half this year, Uber sold its stake in the food delivery aggregation in a block deal on stock exchanges, which was purchased by numerous global & Indian VCs.
For Rs 50.44 per share, or 7.8 percent of the company’s total shares outstanding, 612 million Zomato shares were purchased in a block sale.
“We are a public company and are not privy to what our shareholders are doing with our shares,” Zomato told IANS.
Blinkit’s monthly losses have decreased from Rs 2,040 million (approximately $26 million) in January 2022 – Rs 929 million ($12 million) in July, as reported by the firm.
Zomato paid Rs 4,447 crore (about $568 million) to acquire the 10-minute delivery company.
