Speaking at the same event, Ritesh Agarwal, founder & CEO at Oyo Hotels & Homes, said the firm would consider going public at some point of time primarily because it has “external investor capital”.
The fact whether companies want to get listed in India or overseas is being widely debated, but BigBasket would want to go for an IPO in India, the CEO said.BigBasket aims to go public in the coming years, co-founder & CEO Hari Menon said without mentioning a specific timeline.
“We would want to go public. We would like to go public. There are exits needed, people have to exit businesses and the best form of doing it is through an IPO,” Menon said at the Prarambh Start-up India International Summit on Saturday. The fact whether companies want to get listed in India or overseas is being widely debated, but BigBasket would want to go for an IPO in India, the CEO said.
A clutch of Indian start-ups, including Zomato, Grofers, Delhivery have been chalking out IPO plans of late. While most successful start-ups typically contemplate taking their companies public at some point of time, the pandemic-led growth nudged some firms to advance their plans on the front. Covid-19 materially altered consumer behaviour and many people who usually subscribed to traditional services moved online. At the end of 2020, India had about 570 million active internet users against about 480 million in 2019, according to Counterpoint Research. Sectors like ed-tech, e-grocery, food delivery and gaming among others have been the clear beneficiaries. Menon said the firm’s business has doubled compared to pre-Covid levels. Having received a deluge of orders during the lockdown, the firm struggled to process them initially as it lost nearly 80% of the workforce following the imposition of lockdown in March. Brokerage firm Zerodha, for instance, doubled its consumer base to around four million, said founder & CEO Nithin Kamath, who was part of the session.
Speaking at the same event, Ritesh Agarwal, founder & CEO at Oyo Hotels & Homes, said the firm would consider going public at some point of time primarily because it has “external investor capital”.
Indian start-ups shrugged off the initial setback caused by the pandemic and have been quick to adapt to the changing consumer needs. Consumer internet firms managed to raise as much as $8 billion in 2020 compared to $11.21 billion in 2019, data sourced from market research firm Tracxn showed. More than 10 start-ups across sectors ranging from beauty to payments turned unicorn in 2020 against nine in 2019.
BigBasket’s Menon said India has the potential to have about 200 unicorns by 2025.
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