The company intends to file a draft red herring prospectus preferably by March, but that might even be pushed back to April, the people said.
Meanwhile, on January 17, the National Company Law Tribunal is scheduled to hear the reverse merger petition regarding transfer of registered office from Singapore to India. Customs clearance in Singapore was a major a part of the process.
According to people conversant in the matter, the Bengaluru-based company has convened a board meeting on January 19, which is able to likely consider the size of the IPO and the appointment of bankers for the issue, in addition to consider resolutions on the transfer of the holding company to India.
“They (Zepto) are knee-deep in the IPO process and at the next board meeting we will also discuss this,” one in all the people said. “The reverse merger must be approved and the Indian entity will also need a specific timeline before it can convert to a public limited company – a pre-filing process for an IPO.”
Zepto can be in the technique of acquiring independent directors as a part of its IPO. Zepto could develop into the first independent high-speed trading company to go public. The parents of its biggest rivals – Zomato and Swiggy, which own Blinkit and Instamart platforms – are already listed. Much of the rise in Zomato’s share price in 2024 is attributed to Blinkit’s performance. On September 7, ET first reported that Zepto was in talks with bankers for an IPO in mid-2025. The initial plan was to raise not less than $450 million, but that might change closer to the filing of draft IPO documents.
Wall Street bankers including Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs are in talks with Zepto regarding an initial public offering, ET reported. “They will be there along with several other bankers,” said one other source aware of the events at Zepto.
Zepto closed $350 million in financing on November 22, taking its money available to about $1.4 billion because it competes with rivals and recent entrants like Flipkart Minutes in the fast-growing market.
The plan to relocate the holding company to India comes at a time when authorities are examining the operations of high-speed trading firms for compliance with local foreign direct investment rules.
“We are 100% compliant with national FDI regulations and have been doing so since day one. But we are rapidly moving towards local ownership of our company,” Zepto CEO Aadit Palicha told ET after closing its latest round of financing in November. In about six months, the company raised greater than $1 billion, the most from a neighborhood startup last yr.
