Zepto IPO: How it stacks up against listed rivals Blinkit & Instamart

Synopsis

Zepto is preparing for an IPO as India’s quick commerce market grows more competitive. Blinkit leads in scale and has recently moved closer to profitability, while Swiggy Instamart continues to expand but remains loss-making. All three players are racing for growth while working towards sustainable profits.

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Quick commerce platform Zepto is preparing to go public, likely in June-July 2026. The company has confidentially submitted draft papers to markets regulator Sebi (Securities and Exchange Board of India) for an issue of around Rs 11,000–12,000 crore. When it lists, it will enter a market where the parent firms of its two main rivals, Blinkit, owned by Eternal, and Swiggy, that runs Instamart, are already publicly traded.

Here's how the competitors measure up in the growing quick commerce market.

Scale

Blinkit's dark store network was at around 2,027 as of December 31, 2025, the largest of the three. The Gurugram-based quick commerce firm has set a target of 3,000 stores by March 2027, in what is the most aggressive scale-up for a large player in the space. Instamart's count stood at 1,034 in the same quarter, while ET reported on Monday that Zepto operates 1,100 dark stores currently.

In terms of the number of orders, Blinkit led with about 2.6 million orders a day in the December quarter, with Instamart trailing at 1.2 million in the same period. Zepto was at 2.4–2.5 million orders per day on average in the January-March period.

Financials

In the October-December 2025 quarter, Blinkit reported an adjusted Ebitda of Rs 4 crore compared with a loss of Rs 156 crore in the previous quarter, a landmark for the sector which has seen high cash burn as the competition gets more fierce.

Swiggy, however, saw its losses widen for the same period as its expenditure continued to rise due to Instamart-related costs. Instamart’s adjusted revenue grew 102% to Rs 1,038 crore, but losses rose to Rs 791 crore in Q3 FY26.

Also Read: ETtech Explainer: Q3 results show Blinkit and Instamart on different paths amid rising competition

Meanwhile, ET reported on Monday that Zepto had incurred an Ebitda loss of Rs 55-60 crore in the March quarter, down from Rs 100-110 crore in the July-September period.

All the three major players are working on achieving / sustaining profitability. Swiggy has said it would avoid “irrational” tactics such as zero delivery fees and handling charges. Instamart has guided for contribution margin breakeven in the ongoing April-June quarter.

While the burn is a sector-wide problem, Zepto is poised to enter the public markets carrying the heaviest losses relative to its size among the three, without the benefit of a profitable parent like Eternal which has food delivery to mitigate the pain.

Fundraise

In the run-up to its listing, Zepto closed a $450-million round in October in a mix of primary and secondary transactions, valuing the company at $7 billion.

Swiggy, Zepto’s closest rival in the quick commerce segment, raised Rs 10,000 crore in December 2025 through a qualified institutional placement after having burned through most of the Rs 4,500 crore it raised from its IPO in November 2024. Eternal had raised Rs 8,500 crore in November 2024.

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