(Bloomberg) -- Zomato Ltd. lost about $1.1 billion of market value in two days after the food-delivery platform announced the acquisition of loss-making quick-commerce firm Blink Commerce Pvt., a move some analysts said will weigh on future growth.
Zomato, among the first generation of Internet unicorns to tap India's capital market, tumbled 8.4% in Mumbai trading on Tuesday on top of a 6.6% drop on Monday. The two-day fall to 60.3 rupees put shares 21% below the initial public offering price.
The acquisition will increase Zomato's operating loss to fund activities of Blink and its Blinkit app, “shifting path to profitability back by another year,” Rahul Jain, an analyst at Dolat Capital Market Ltd., said in a note.
The successful listing of Zomato last year set the tone for the IPOs of a number of Indian unicorns, including digital-payments firm Paytm's parent One 97 Communications Ltd. However, doubts have been raised about the valuations of the so-called new-age technology firms -- as well as about their business models, with many companies still making losses and turning to the inorganic route of acquisitions to expand.
Zomato, backed by Sequoia Capital and Jack Ma's Ant Group Co. among others, first invested in Blink in August 2021. The company said the acquisition will help it increase its hyper-local delivery fleet and reduce some costs.
The acquisition widens Zomato's scope beyond food delivery and “highlights management's broader ambitions of capturing a larger slice of India's $1.3 trillion commerce market,” Swapnil Potdukhe, an analyst at JM Financial Institutional Securities Ltd., said in a note.
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