After Zomato's initial public offering (IPO) ended on Friday with a record-breaking subscription, RPG Enterprises chairman Harsh Goenka took a dig at the online food delivery service's grand success.

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When it lists next week, Zomato will be the first of the Indian unicorns to become a publicly-listed business on the stock exchanges.

In the Zomato IPO, the non-anchor portion of 71.92 crore shares (amounting to around Rs 5,466 crore) was subscribed close to 40 times on July 16 (closing day of bidding). Reports said that the demand of over Rs 2.1 lakh crore was the third-highest ever in the history of such public offers. And 186 anchor investors had invested around Rs 4,196 crore on July 13.

But Goenka was not impressed. He tweeted that he intends to start his newest corporate venture, an app similar to Zomato or Swiggy, offer more discounts and post fewer losses relatively. And he hoped to list it subsequently at Rs 1 lakh crore and claimed to look for “suckers to invest”.

My newest corporate venture:I am starting a Swiggy/Zomato like app. I will provide food at 40% discount with a loss of only Rs 3000 cr. If you think the loss is less, I will give 60% discount. I will then list it at Rs 1 lakh cr.Looking for suckers to invest!

— Harsh Goenka (@hvgoenka) July 17, 2021

And Twitterati responded to Goenka’s tweet and joined the debate on whether a loss-making unicorn should get such high valuations.

Animesh Lodha challenged Goenka to replicate Zomato’s business model.

My newest corporate venture:I am starting a Swiggy/Zomato like app. I will provide food at 40% discount with a loss of only Rs 3000 cr. If you think the loss is less, I will give 60% discount. I will then list it at Rs 1 lakh cr.Looking for suckers to invest!

— Harsh Goenka (@hvgoenka) July 17, 2021

Twitter user Puneet Bhatnagar agreed with Goenka that this (subscribing to Zomato's IPO) defied logic.

My newest corporate venture:I am starting a Swiggy/Zomato like app. I will provide food at 40% discount with a loss of only Rs 3000 cr. If you think the loss is less, I will give 60% discount. I will then list it at Rs 1 lakh cr.Looking for suckers to invest!

— Harsh Goenka (@hvgoenka) July 17, 2021

CA Vivek R. Kasat pointed out that Zomato’s employees (direct stakeholders) did not subscribe to their quote fully.

Pawan Kumar Nathani tweeted that once the model matures, Zomato might make more money from other avenues like how e-commerce giant Amazon does.

My newest corporate venture:I am starting a Swiggy/Zomato like app. I will provide food at 40% discount with a loss of only Rs 3000 cr. If you think the loss is less, I will give 60% discount. I will then list it at Rs 1 lakh cr.Looking for suckers to invest!

— Harsh Goenka (@hvgoenka) July 17, 2021

Twitter user Ashok Ramachandran agreed with Goenka and tweeted that he was sharing with his friend that people are investing in something, which is not even tangible.

My newest corporate venture:I am starting a Swiggy/Zomato like app. I will provide food at 40% discount with a loss of only Rs 3000 cr. If you think the loss is less, I will give 60% discount. I will then list it at Rs 1 lakh cr.Looking for suckers to invest!

— Harsh Goenka (@hvgoenka) July 17, 2021

Most of the brokerage house analysts in their reports had recommended that investors should apply for listing gains to Zomato’s IPO (which had a price band of Rs 72-76 per share).

First Published:Jul 19, 2021 12:18 PM IST