Global hedge fund Coatue Likely To Buy stake in Swiggy

Global technology hedge fund Coatue Management is mulling over to invest $50-100 million in online food delivery platform Swiggy.

The move comes less than two months after South African media giant Naspers and Chinese e-commerce firm Meituan-Dianping invested $100 million in the Bengaluru-based startup, underlining how the pace of investment in India’s digital market is picking up again.

Coatue and Meituan-Dianping, besides two other investors who could not be identified, are in talks to invest in Swiggy, which was valued at $700 million last month. Meituan-Dianping invested $40 million in the $100-million round.

"Coatue has been talking to Swiggy for the last few months before the previous round of funding was closed," said one of the people, adding that a deal was not final yet. It is not clear if the investment will be an extension of the previous round or a new one, as Swiggy looks to beef up its war chest as it competes with Ant Financial-backed Zomato besides new entrants like Ola and UberEATS.

A technology-focused hedge fund, New York-based Coatue is led by former Tiger Management executive Philippe Laffont and has over $15 billion in assets under management. Its interest in the Indian Internet ecosystem follows the penetration of affordable data in India a move that Laffont believes will help deepen customer acquisition through deeper penetration, as per a report in Forbes last month.