Indian food tech unicorn, Swiggy closed a $ 1.25 billion funding round led by SoftBank Vision 2 and Prosus Ventures.

Swiggy's fresh round, is said to be termed as 'heavily oversubscribed', values the six-year-old food tech unicorn at $5.5 billion post-money.

Earlier this year, the food tech unicorn’s $ 800 million investment announced to its workforce is included in the current Series J financing round. Besides, SoftBank put in $450 million of its own money in the new round.

This funding round makes SoftBank’s first investment done on to an Indian food tech sector and for the same, the Japanese firm received approval from the Competition Commission of India.

Like most startups that were put in hot waters by the coronavirus, Swiggy also faced a fair share of downfall. But the unicorn’s recent bet on expanding into grocery delivery and pick-up and drop service has paid off, according to the company. The number of orders it processes currently is 30 percent higher than it was before Covid.

It claims that the fresh fundraising round demonstrates the company's comeback in recent quarters.

This new investment comes at a time when Zomato opened the path for startups to go public, and soon followed by Paytm’s biggest IPO. Zomato, Swiggy’s equally strong rival, garnered $1.3 billion in its initial public offering last week, while financial services firms Paytm and MobiKwik have also filed for IPOs.

On the other hand, Swiggy’s Chief Operating Officer (COO) bid adieu to he firm in pursuit of other interests and immediately the unicorn elevated Phani Kishan to its co-founder role. A lot has been going on with Swiggy lately.

“The participation of some of the world's most innovative investors is a huge win in Swiggy's mission and capacity to develop a long-lasting and iconic company out of India. “The scope of food delivery in India is huge, and we will continue to spend aggressively in growing this category over the coming few years,” Swiggy CEO Sriharsha Majety said.

Last year, a third competitor, Amazon, entered the Indian food delivery business, though its operations are still limited to areas of Bangalore. Zomato executives dismissed Amazon as a serious contender for the time being during a virtual conference held ahead of the IPO last week. “Amazon has had no significant influence on market share so far,” the company's chief financial officer stated.

SoftBank recently invested in Flipkart, announcing that the total investment through Vision Fund 2 in India might reach $4 billion by the end of the year. It has funded Meesho, Zeta, and Whatfix since the beginning of the year, and it is allegedly in talks to back B2B e-commerce platform OfBusiness and edtech unicorn Unacademy in their future investment round.