Zomato shares zoom to over 82% in market debut

Zomato shares soared 82.8 per cent on Friday after opening at ₹116 in pre-open trade, a 53 per cent premium to the offer price of ₹76 for the 93.75 billion rupees IPO. Zomato shares jumped nearly 53 per cent in its debut trade against its issue price of ₹76.

Zomato stock made its debut at ₹115 or a huge gain of 51.31 per cent against the issue price on BSE and then hit a high of ₹138, a jump of 81.57 per cent. It got listed on NSE at ₹116, registering a premium of 52.63 per cent.

Zomato founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal shared a letter to shareholders ahead of its much-anticipated stock market debut on Friday. ''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 said.

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"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. 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,'' the 38-year-old added.

Goyal said India is a tough market to operate in but "if you are building to succeed in India, you are already exceptional." "I say that because I believe Zomato and Swiggy are two of the best food delivery apps in the world today. We have a long way to go before we can call ourselves world class by our customers’ standards, but we are determined to get there," he added.

Zomato opened its initial public offering from July 14 to July 16 and the ₹9,375-crore IPO was sold in a price band of ₹74-76. Zomato's mega public issue saw a subscription of over 38 times, receiving a robust response from all investors. The Zomato issue received bids for over 2,751 crore equity shares against the 71.92 crore shares on offer.

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Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi alumnus Goyal launched Zomato in 2008 with fellow graduate Pankaj Chaddah. It operated in about 525 cities in India as of March 31 and has partnered with close to 390,000 restaurants. China's Ant Group holds a 16.53 per cent stake in Zomato and Info Edge (India), its top shareholder, holds an 18.55 per cent stake.

Zomato has become the first startup to go public in the country's food delivery market, which research firm RedSeer estimated is worth $4.2 billion. Zomato offers home delivery of food, allows customers to book tables for dining-in and collates restaurant reviews.

Paytm, Oyo Hotels and Ola, both backed by SoftBank, are among the startups set to enter markets, riding on support from foreign funds and local investors.

(With agency inputs)