Shares of online food ordering and delivery platform Swiggy gained 3% over two trading sessions after a resolution enabling the company to become an Indian owned and controlled company was approved at its annual general meeting on Tuesday.
This will allow Swiggy’s quick commerce arm Instamart to operate an inventory-owned model alongside its online marketplace for third-party sellers.
To become an Indian owned and controlled company, foreign ownership must be less than 50% and the majority board representation has to be of resident Indian individuals. Swiggy lowered the cap on foreign holdings to 49.5% from 50.02% in June. With foreign investors such as SoftBank surrendering the right to nominate directors, board representation will remain Indian.
Jefferies India said in a report dated 19 August that capping foreign holdings will lead to passive outflows from foreign funds that replicate the MSCI and FTSE indices. This is a short-term negative. However, if Swiggy's fundamentals improve, then domestic investors can make up for foreign fund outflows.
Eternal, which owns and operates Zomato and Blinkit, imposed a similar foreign ownership restriction in April 2025. Its stock price has since advanced 40% on improving financial performance.
Instamart’s loss narrowed in the June quarter (Q1FY27) and it continues to make a loss at the adjusted Ebitda level (pre-Ind AS). The loss fell 13% year-on-year and 9% sequentially to ₹778 crore as its net order value (NOV)—the gross order value minus discounts—rose 39% year-on-year and 3% sequentially to ₹5,817 crore.
As existing dark stores scale-up their business, NOV and profitability should improve. Profitability may also get a leg-up from the inventory ownership-led mode, which can help to capture the full product margin even after factoring-in inventory losses compared to earning commission from sellers.
Margin improvement
Owning inventory also means additional working capital requirements, but profitability prospects are better. The Ebitda margin as a percentage of NOV can improve by 80-100 basis points (bps) after a year or so, even though the current Ebitda margin is negative, according to analysts.
This makes the implied valuation of Instamart a key monitorable. Emkay Global Financial Services values Swiggy’s food-delivery business at ₹57,000 crore, using EV/Ebitda of 32x based on FY28 estimates.
Separately, Emkay assigns a valuation of ₹6,500 crore to the out-of-home and supply chain business. Also, there is a cash in hand of ₹15,000 crore. If the total of these three is deducted from Swiggy’s current market capitalization of ₹75,000 crore, the implied valuation of Instamart comes to a negative ₹3,500 crore.
This pessimism could perhaps be because the Street expects Instamart to keep on making losses, at least for now, and would require constant equity or debt fund infusion. But after becoming an Indian owned and controlled company, the chances are that Instamart may be in a better position to compete and survive in the quick commerce space.
So, unless there is a severe de-rating of Swiggy’s food delivery business or a worsening of Instamart’s financials, there could be a reassessment of Instamart’s implied valuation.