For a large consumer tech company like Swiggy, hot on the heels of a $1.3 Bn IPO, 2025 was a year of all-out push to its quick commerce vehicle with bets on new products.

In India’s hyper-competitive quick commerce market, Swiggy Instamart aced with innovations and new features to edge out its fiercest rival Zepto, while Eternal-run Blinkit ruled the market with nearly half of it in its command.

Swiggy’s strategy, as assessed from its financial commentaries across the year, focussed on building a product roadmap across food delivery, quick commerce and other verticals to test new consumer touchpoints – some within the main Swiggy app and others through standalone properties or apps.

“Swiggy’s business strategy has been about being nimble and humble,” Swiggy CEO Sriharsha Majety said in a letter to shareholders on the Q2 FY26 financials. “It strove to become more and more relevant to customers by understanding their needs and reinventing itself to cater to more of their purchase missions; rather than trying to shape their behaviour artificially to suit its offerings.”

As the consumer tech zone turned more bustling, the company stepped up focus on retaining users, widening the acquisition funnel through different apps or varied features within the mother app and defending the leverage, especially towards the latter half of the year.

Whether it was the 10-minute food delivery or the food-on-train service or a standalone Instamart app or the quick commerce tab within the main app or travel and concierge services – Swiggy’s product DNA-led model was the highlight of the year.

While all these lifted the topline 35% to INR 15,226.8 Cr in FY25 from INR 11,247.4 Cr a year back, the core food delivery business seemed to have stabilised despite the sectoral headwinds. Quick commerce, although still staggering over mounting losses, was equivalent to two-thirds of the food delivery business. A year after it went public, the company saw its net loss deepen 33% to INR 3,116.8 Cr in FY25 from INR 2,350.2 Cr in the previous fiscal on the back of quick commerce expansion.

As the year comes to a close, Swiggy’s 2025 business strategy makes an intriguing case for a review.

Capital Strategy: Building War Chest

The theme of Swiggy’s 2025 financial story is the capital strategy, while quick commerce runs as the axis of its playbook, although the segment has turned out to be a cash-guzzler.

While Blinkit maintains the lead with a 40-45% market share, Instamart finds its steepest competition from Zepto, with their claims of 25-27% each. This trio controls about 90% of the market.

With the quick commerce blazing, the sprinters in the high-stakes 10-minute delivery race get loaded with cash to grab a bigger slice of the market pie.

Eternal, reportedly sitting on INR 18,000 Cr cash reserves, pumped INR 600 Cr into Blinkit on November 26, driving its total capital infusion for 2025 to INR 2,600 Cr. Zepto, on the other hand, has a liquidity support of $900 Mn (INR 7,400 Cr) after it raised $450 Mn in October.

Swiggy, as CEO Majety was quoted in the company’s letter to shareholders, has a cash balance of INR 4,605 Cr and hopes to see an infusion of INR 2,400 Cr from its stake sale in Rapido. As the INR 10,000 Cr QIP was overbought 4.5-fold, indicating that its cash reserves will hit INR 17,000 Cr ($2 Bn).

“The external competitive environment is dynamic, and legacy and new players continue to attract investments to the sector. This has called for a conversation with the Board to consider an additional fund-raise that will give us access to sufficient growth capital while enhancing our strategic flexibility,” Majety told shareholders earlier.

Zepto has, meanwhile, geared up for a

© Inc42