Deepinder Goyal (Founder & CEO, Zomato) has informed Zomato employees about the company’s plans for initial public offering (IPO) by the first half of 2021. He e-mailed the news to employees after Info Edge, which holds the largest 22.2 percent share in Zomato, divulged that the Indian food delivery giant has completed a funding round of $160 million led by Tiger Global and Temasek Holdings subsidiary MacRitchie Investments.

Zomato is currently valued at $3.3 billion, while its biggest rival Swiggy is valued at $3.6 billion.

As per the email accessed by ET, Goyal wrote, “We have raised a lot of money, and today, our cash in the bank, around $250 million, is more than ever in our history. Tiger Global, Temasek, Baillie Gifford and Ant Financial have already participated in our current round, and there are more big names joining the round – we estimate that our current round will end up with us at $600 million in the bank very soon,” Goyal wrote.

“We have no immediate plans on how to spend this money. We are treating this cash as a ‘war chest’ for future M&A and fighting off any mischief or price wars from our competition,” he added. Regarding IPO plans, he wrote, “Our finance/legal teams are working hard to take us to IPO sometime in the first half of next year. We hope to create a lot of value for our current employees who have Esops sometime in the next year.”

Founded by Deepinder and Pankaj Chaddah, Zomato came into existence in 2008. Headquartered in Gurugram, and home to 5,000+ employees, the company offers information, menus and user-reviews of restaurants as well as food delivery options from partner restaurants in select cities. Zomato is said to have eight crore (80 million) monthly active users on its platform.