Ashneer Grover claims BlinkIt 'served misery' to Zomato, says 'Stock ₹450 ka hota if…’

With the shares of Zomato tumbling for the second day in a row, the shares of the online food delivery platform have registered their all-time low in intra-day trade. As the shares tanked over 11% today, Former BharatPe founder and Shark Tank India judge Ashneer Grover took to Twitter and claimed that if Zomato would have merged with Swiggy instead of BlinkIt, the shares would have risen to the value of Rs 450.

Taking to Twitter, Ashneer Grover said, "On the stock market - Blinkit served piping hot misery to Zomato in 10 minutes! Yeh hi agar Swiggy ko merge kar liya hota to Rs 450 ka stock hota!!"

Zomato's shares tumbled to an all-time low on Monday after the mandatory pre-IPO (Initial Public Offering) shareholders' lock-in period ended on July 23.

Why the conversation of BlinkIt and Swiggy?

Earlier in June, in a share-swap deal, Zomato’s board approved the acquisition of quick-commerce company Blinkit, formerly Grofers, for Rs 4,447 crore (around $567 million). The deal comes in the backdrop, of its $100 million in the Gurgaon-based quick-commerce startup last year, picking up about 10% stake. It was believed that the acquisition was to help increase Zomato's hyperlocal delivery fleet utilisation and reduce the cost of delivery.

Notably, the Zomato-BlinkIt merger bought a new perspective on the growing corporate rivalry between online food-delivery platforms Zomato and Swiggy.

Zomato last year made an amazing entry on the stock exchanges. The food aggregator's initial public offering was a success as it was subscribed around 38.25 times.

Ashneer Grover in May urged investors to buy free-falling Zomato shares

Interestingly, in May, the former BharatPe founder suggested investors to buy Zomato shares, even when it had been falling for months. He even said that buying the falling Zomato shares wouldn't be a bad idea.

In a tweet in May, he wrote, "It’s all about perspective. If you were a Zomato employee and exercised your ESOP (employee stock ownership) at Rs 140 or higher price post IPO, you probably paid more cost per share as Income Tax, than what you can buy it today from market freely. At Rs 56 per share price, markets are giving everyone ESOPs."

It was also reported that last year, Grover had made a Rs 150 crore personal application in the Zomato IPO.