Deepinder Goyal, the founder and CEO of Zomato, has sold all of his shares in Blinkit's parent company, Grofers International Pte Ltd, to Tiger Global.

According to Grofers International's filings with Singapore's Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority, Goyal has transferred 42,371 preference shares to Tiger Global's Internet Fund III Pte Ltd. (ACRA).

Tiger Global now owns 2.96 million shares in the parent company of the grocery delivery platform, with a total paid-up capital of $107.55 million, according to the company.

Zomato is increasing its investment in Blinkit (formerly Grofers) after abandoning its plans to enter and scale its presence in the e-grocery segment for the second time since the Covid-19 pandemic struck the country. After Zomato committed to investing $1 billion in complementary startups over the next two years, Goyal's personal investments in Blinkit came under scrutiny.

It then went on to invest in Shiprocket, a logistics startup in which Goyal had a personal stake. Former Infosys director and chairman of Aarin Capital Partners Mohandas Pai had raised concerns about "conflict of interest" when Zomato announced its investment in Shiprocket, citing Goyal's personal investment in the company in a tweet.

Goyal had responded with a tweet, “there was no conflict of interest to begin with… This personal investment was one of the key reasons we got closer to Shiprocket (and its founders). That’s how we discovered that there was potential long-term strategic fit between the two companies… Also, such things (personal investments followed by Zomato stepping in) might continue to happen by design, while we continue to ensure the highest levels of disclosure and corporate governance at Zomato.”

When Zomato co-led a $185 million round in December, Goyal sold his $100,000 personal investment in Shiprocket.

Blinkit signed a deal with Zomato and Tiger Global last year to raise $120 million as part of a new round of funding. Albinder Dhindsa, a cofounder of Blinkit, later confirmed that the infusion was made at a valuation of more than $1 billion, making the e-grocer the 24th unicorn in 2021. A unicorn is a privately held company that has a market capitalization of $1 billion or more.

Dhindsa had previously stated that the round was still open and that additional investments were expected.

Zomato was reportedly in talks to invest up to $500 million in Blinkit, making it one of the company's largest investments in any startup.

The proposed deal will also see it expand its food delivery war with Swiggy into the so-called ultrafast commerce space, which is attracting a lot of money from investors all over the world. Blinkit, led by Dhindsa, would most likely be valued at $1.5 billion after the financing.

Swiggy just announced a $700 million investment in its Instamart quick commerce platform. Zomato's startup investment strategy is similar to that of Info Edge, one of its early investors.

Zomato has been betting on businesses in the ordering management, digital advertising, logistics, and fitness space with a $1 billion corpus.

 Zomato made investments in Adonmo, a digital advertising company, and UrbanPiper, a food ordering system, at the end of January.

In a BSE filing, Zomato stated, “both UrbanPiper and Adonmo investments are synergistic to our core business and will help accelerate growth of these companies which will help in filling important gaps in the food ordering and delivery ecosystem in India.”