Ant Financial may dampen Zomato’s $500 mn plan, Amazon wants more third party sales

Foodtech major Zomato facing a funding challenge. Amazon wants to increase third party sales.

Ant Financial hurdle for Zomato fundraise

Ant Financial, the payments and fintech affiliate of Chinese internet giant Alibaba Group, has spooked potential investors in the $500 million on-going fundraise by Zomato, The Economic Times reported.

During its previous round in Zomato, Ant Financial signed an agreement with the foodtech major making it an Ant Financial ecosystem company, the report said.

The report added that the arrangement restricts Zomato’s ability to make decisions related to payments, ecommerce and online-to-offline services across geographies.

It also requires Zomato to take into consideration interests of Paytm,  another Ant Financial ecosystem entity, the report said.

Zomato’s ability to close its funding will be crucial in its battle for market share with rival Swiggy, which is in talks to raise additional $500 million from Korea Investment Partners, Mirae Asset Management and others.

Amazon banks on third party sellers for compliance

Online ecommerce platform Amazon is looking to grow its share of third party sellers for compliance with the government’s FDI regulations, The Times of India reported.

The platform is looking to grow sales contribution from third party sellers to 30-33%, up from 20% as on date, the report said.

The move is critical for the platform as it looks to reduce the share of sales from partially or indirectly owned seller entities like Cloudtail and Appario to comply with the guidelines set in Press Note 2 which came into effect in February.

The government has said it will not tolerate violation of FDI norms by ecommerce entities in meetings with company representatives.