18 Jun From Paytm to MakeMyTrip: How Indian startups are unwinding Chinese ownership
India’s largest online travel platform plans to raise $3 billion through a mix of debt and equity to buy back shares from Trip.com Group. Following this, Trip.com’s stake in MakeMyTrip will drop to 19.99% from 45.34% currently, and its board representation will shrink to two directors from five.
Other Indian companies have also been reducing the stakes held by Chinese investors after geopolitical tensions between the two nations. Let’s take a look:
Paytm
Ant Financial, a subsidiary of Alibaba, was a major early investor in Paytm and had a stake of about 25%. Over the past few years, Antfin Netherlands Holding has gradually reduced its stake in Paytm’s parent One 97 Communications to under 5%.
This began in 2023 when Antfin cut its approximately 23% stake to 20% by selling shares worth Rs 2,307 crore. Later in the year, founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma acquired a 10.3% stake worth $628 million from Ant, reducing its holding to 9.8%. Last month, Antfin sold a 4.1% stake in One97 Communications, through a block deal worth Rs 2,200 crore.
Zomato
Alibaba was an investor in the food and grocery delivery firm through two entities: Ant Financial and Alipay Singapore Holding. The Ant Group had invested Rs 3,246 crore in the company through several tranches between 2018 and 2020.
In 2023, Alipay sold its entire stake in Zomato for about Rs 3,336 crore through a block deal. Meanwhile, Ant Group sold Zomato shares worth more than Rs 4,772 crore in two block deals last August, netting 4x returns and bringing its stake down to 2.1%.
At the time of Gurugram-based Zomato’s initial public offering in 2021, Ant Group was the second largest shareholder in the company after Info Edge, an early backer that still has a 13.7% stake.
BigBasket
In 2021, the Tata Group and Big Basket finalised a $1.2 billion deal giving the salt-to-software conglomerate a 60% stake in the e-grocer. The deal provided a full exit to Alibaba.
Dream11
Chinese firm Tencent invested $100 million in Dream11 in 2018 during a Series D funding round for a stake of approximately 10%. Over time, it has reduced that holding due to the challenging regulatory environment. In an interview with ETtech, CEO Harsh Jain said Tencent now owns less than 10% of Dream Sports. He added that the company won’t raise any fresh capital from Chinese investors in the future.
Delhivery
China’s Fosun International in 2021 sold a portion of its stake in logistics company Delhivery to Addition, a company founded by former Tiger Global executive Lee Fixel, and late-stage equity fund Bay Capital. Fosun held around 3.8% in Delhivery and sold 1.3%, sources had told ET then.
The company had also said it was looking to exit Delhivery altogether before its public issue.
Pratilipi
Digital storytelling platform Pratilipi on April 3 raised $20 million in a funding round led by Jungle Ventures. The round included $8 million in secondary deals, and provided an exit of Chinese investors Qiming Venture Partners and Shunwei Capital.