Quickcommerce giant Zepto has received in-principle approval from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) for its proposed initial public offering, according to sources cited by The Arc, which first reported the development on Monday. The quick commerce unicorn is targeting a listing between July and September 2026, in what would make it one of the youngest venture-backed startups in India to go public.
The company is looking to raise approximately ₹11,000 crore ($1.3 billion) through a mix of fresh share issuance and an offer for sale by early investors. The approval comes via the confidential filing route, a mechanism that allows companies to engage with the regulator and refine their issue structure without making financial disclosures public at the outset — the same path taken by Swiggy, Meesho, and Groww before their respective listings.
Key Facts:
- IPO size: ₹11,000 crore (~$1.3 billion), mix of fresh issue + OFS
- Target listing window: July–September 2026
- Last private valuation: $7 billion (October 2025, $450 million round)
- Total funding raised to date: $2.3 billion+
- Bankers: Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Axis Capital, HSBC, JM Financial, IIFL, Motilal Oswal
- Next step: Refile prospectus with FY26 numbers in first week of May
- Testing-the-waters (TTW) process: Expected to wrap up in 2–3 weeks
Founded in 2021 by Aadit Palicha and Kaivalya Vohra — both Stanford dropouts who originally built a kirana-partnership model called KiranaKart before pivoting to the dark-store format — Zepto has grown into India’s second or third-largest quick commerce platform by gross order value, competing directly with Blinkit (owned by Eternal) and Swiggy Instamart.
The in-principle nod is not the final green light. Zepto is expected to refile its prospectus with updated FY26 financials in the first week of May, after completing the testing-the-waters process — a pre-marketing exercise that lets the company gauge appetite from qualified institutional buyers before formally pricing the issue. Final SEBI approval will follow once the updated prospectus is reviewed.
The IPO is primarily a fresh capital raise rather than an exit vehicle for early investors. Zepto held approximately $600–700 million in cash as of March 2026 — a thinner cushion compared to Blinkit ($1.9 billion) and Swiggy ($1.7 billion) — making the public raise strategically important for funding continued dark store expansion. The company has set a target of 2,000 dark stores by 2028 and plans to enter 40–50 new cities, including tier-2 markets.
Financially, Zepto reported revenue of ₹11,110 crore in FY25, a 150% jump year-on-year, but net losses widened to ₹3,367 crore as aggressive expansion pushed costs higher. Management has stated it is targeting EBITDA breakeven within 12–15 months, with monthly cash burn reportedly down by roughly half from its peak. The company’s annualised advertising revenue has crossed ₹1,000 crore, a high-margin stream that management is counting on to shift unit economics materially before the listing.
The timing is complicated by broader market conditions. Shares of both Swiggy and Eternal have fallen 30–35% over the past six months, repricing the listed quick commerce peer group and putting pressure on the valuation Zepto can realistically command. Some analysts have flagged that the company may need to price at $5–6 billion rather than the $7–8 billion it has been seeking in private conversations with investors.
The approval also follows Zepto’s completion of a reverse flip — the company moved its parent entity’s domicile from Singapore to India in January 2025, a mandatory step for a domestic listing that required NCLT approval and involved a significant tax outlay, though the exact figure has not been disclosed.
If the listing proceeds on schedule, Zepto will join Swiggy and Eternal as publicly traded players in India’s quick commerce sector — a segment that analysts project could grow into a $57 billion market by 2030.
