Top 5 tech and startup stories of the day

Swiggy’s initial public offering ( IPO), India’s second-largest this year, was oversubscribed on the final day. This and more in today’s ETtech Top 5.

Also in the letter:
■ Ola Electric financials
■ Trump's win boosts Starlink
■ Musk claims X usage spike
Swiggy IPO oversubscribed as QIBs do final-day heavy lifting Sriharsha Majety, group CEO, Swiggy

Food and grocery delivery firm Swiggy’s Rs 11,300-crore initial public offering (IPO) was subscribed 3.6 times the shares on offer as institutional investors amped up their bidding activity on the final day.

Tell me more: The bookbuilding for the offering, which commenced on November 6, saw qualified institutional bidders (QIBs) swoop in on the last day and bid for six times the shares allocated to them.

Retail investors subscribed to their portion 1.14 times, while the portion reserved for employees saw 1.65x bidding.

Non-institutional investors, which include corporates and high net worth individuals (HNIs), bid for only 41% of the shares reserved for them.

The big picture: This was the country’s second-largest IPO this year after Hyundai Motor India and saw significant interest from institutional investors. In the company’s anchor book, which closed on November 5, Swiggy allocated shares worth Rs 5,085 crore to over 75 global and domestic investors. We had earlier reported that the anchor book was oversubscribed by 25 times.

The Bengaluru-based firm’s shares will list on the stock exchanges on November 13.

In numbers: Swiggy had set a price band of Rs 371-390 per share for its offering, which includes Rs 4,499 crore in primary fundraise and an offer-for-sale of stock worth Rs 6,828 crore by investors including Prosus, Accel, Elevation Partners, Norwest, Tencent, and Meituan.

At the upper end of the price band, the company is valued at over Rs 95,000 crore. Gurugram-based Zomato had a market capitalisation of Rs 2.2 lakh crore as of Thursday’s market close. We measured up the two fierce rivals against each other across segments such as food delivery and quick commerce here.

Also Read | Swiggy IPO: Here's how it stacks up against Zomato

BlackBuck sets IPO price band at Rs 259-273; valuation lowered
Rajesh Yabaji, founder, BlackBuck

Flipkart-backed truck aggregator platform BlackBuck has set the price band for its upcoming initial public offering (IPO) at Rs 259 to Rs 273 per share. This values the company at Rs 4,818 crore, which is 36% lower than its last private valuation of Rs 7,500 crore in July 2021 – when it closed a round led by Tribe Capital.

CCI probe finds Zomato, Swiggy breached antitrust laws, documents show
Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal; Sriharsha Majety, group CEO, Swiggy

An investigation by India's antitrust body Competition Commission of India (CCI) found food delivery giants Zomato and Swiggy breached competition laws, with their business practices favouring select restaurants listed on their platforms, Reuters reported.

Driving the news: Zomato secured "exclusivity contracts" with partners in exchange for reduced commissions, while Swiggy promised business growth to select partners who listed exclusively on its platform, as per confidential documents from the CCI.

Background: The investigation into Swiggy and Zomato began in 2022 after a complaint by the National Restaurant Association of India about the impact on food outlets of alleged anti-competitive practices by these platforms.

Consequences: Shares of Zomato fell 3% after the report. The CCI case is mentioned as one of the "internal risks" in Swiggy's IPO prospectus, which says "any breach of the provisions of Competition Act, may attract substantial monetary penalties."

Also Read: Final CCI order on Amazon & Flipkart likely by November
Ola Electric Q2 results: net loss narrows YoY to Rs 495 crore; revenue jumps 39%

Bhavish Aggarwal, CEO, Ola Electric

Electric two-wheeler vehicle (EV) maker Ola Electric on Friday reported a narrowing of its net loss to Rs 495 crore for the quarter ended September 2024, from Rs 524 crore a year ago.

Financials:

• Revenue from operation rose 39% YoY to Rs 1,214 crore
• Sequentially, the loss widened from Rs 347 crore in the June quarter
• Ebitda loss stood at Rs 223 crore, from Rs 321 crore a year ago

Total deliveries in Q2 FY25 were 98,619 against 56,813 a year ago.

Founder speak: In an earnings call with analysts, Ola Electric’s founder and CEO Bhavish Aggarwal said that the two-wheeler industry saw increased competitive aggression in the second quarter. He added that the firm saw capacity constraints on its service network during the period.

“Over the last couple of months, we faced a capacity issue at our service centres because our service capacity growth lagged our sales volume growth over the two to three quarters,” he said.

Recap: We reported on November 1 that the two-wheeler maker has regained its market share, reaching 31% in October after five consecutive months of decline. Despite the recent rise in sales, Ola Electric has faced an increase in customer complaints about after-sales service, software issues and hardware malfunctions.

To address service-related concerns, CEO Aggarwal announced on Septemeber 27 that Ola Electric would double its service centres to 1,000 by December as part of its ‘Hyperservice’ campaign.

Also Read: Ola Electric gets show cause notice for consumer rights violations
Trump's victory may give Starlink and Amazon leverage for India satcom push

With Donald Trump set for a second term in the White House, Elon Musk’s Starlink and Amazon Kuiper may receive a boost in India for their planned satellite internet plans.

Driving the news: A battle is underway between Jio and Airtel, and global satellite firms Starlink and Jeff Bezos-backed Amazon Kuiper, over the allocation mode of satellite spectrum and its pricing to support broadband-from-space services.

Communications minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said earlier this week that satellite airwaves will not be auctioned but allocated administratively, though at a cost to be decided by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai).

A telecom department official told us that given Musk’s close relationship with Trump, Indian players’ misgivings may increase.

Context: Making a case for equal treatment, Indian telcos have asked for auctioned satellite spectrum. Global operators have rejected the telcos’ call, calling it ‘self-serving’. They have held that since satcom airwaves are a shared resource, they cannot be auctioned.

Yes, but: Indian telcos are counting on the government to finalise a fair satellite spectrum allocation and pricing policy that ensures a level-playing field between telcos and satcom companies.

Also Read: Starlink debunks arguments on predatory pricing of next-gen systems at TRAI open house
Elon Musk says X saw all-time high usage amid US elections frenzy

Billionaire Elon Musk said his social media platform X has registered record usage during the US election that saw Republican candidate Donald Trump returning as president for a second time.

The numbers:

• X logs 434.1 billion global user seconds during the election period
• New user sign-ups rise 15.5%
• Sign-ups during US election count up by 43%

Musk’s claims: In his posts, Musk said X is now the top news app on AppStore in Canada and number 2 on the news app ranking in Norway.

Tell me more: Musk had been a key promoter in Trump's campaign via his platform. Having donated $120 million, he was also the second highest monetary supporter of the Republican party’s candidate.

Trump’s victory saw an upsurge in Musk’s net worth, bringing it to $285.6 billion. His contemporaries Jeff Bezos and Larry Ellison saw an increase in their wealth as well.

Today’s ETtech Top 5 newsletter was curated by Riya Roy Chowdhury and Blessy Reji in Bengaluru.