'We Are Adequately Capitalised': Zomato CEO To Employees Amid Market Fall

Deepinder Goyal, co-founder and CEO Zomato wrote to employees as the market fall pulled down the company's market cap to $9.64 billion from the high of $17 billion during the IPO. The company's stock price hit the lower circuit at Rs 91 during trading offers.

Goyal said that the fall in market was due to the global sell-off in growth tech stocks. "This is the thing about stock market and public companies - valuations can swing massively without any change in the fundamentals of the business depending on macro-economic factors like inflation, interest rates etc...," wrote Goyal in an internal mail to employees.

It was a red day for Dalal Street on Monday with benchmark indices falling the most since April last year in intra-day deals. Panic selling due to the uncertainty around the quantum of a rate hike by the US Fed spooked the markets. Besides, geo-political tensions between Russia and Ukrain, rising dollar index, and surging oil prices and bond yield added to the woes.

He also said that since one cannot control the market sentiments or the macro economic factors, one must focus on execution. "What we do control is our execution and the value we create for our internal and external customers. Focus and execute," he wrote.

"..I Have been waiting for a bear market for a long time now - that is when funding dried up for everyone, and companies with the most solid teams and execution rise to the top," he added.

Sources close to the company said that Goyal had to write this email to employees as many were getting distracted by share prices going down. However, the email and the crash happened on a day when rival Swiggy raised $700 million at a valuation of $10.7 billion.

Goyal did write that even at $10 billion the company's valuation was higher than the IPO valuation of $8 billion.

"I am confident of our overall strategy as a business.Lets continue executing...We are adequately capitalised and don't have much to worry about except execution," he said.

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