Secondaries Take Centre stage

☕🗞️ Good morning! Welcome to The Brief

Every week, the team at Lightbox cuts through the noise and serves up sharp insights on key developments in India’s consumer economy. This week we go beyond the headline to decode secondaries and how they are reshaping investor sentiment.

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📡 Signals

Secondaries Take the Spotlight: Rethinking Liquidity, Ownership, and IPO Readiness

Earlier last week, headlines reflected yet another milestone for IPO-bound quick commerce platform Zepto as it inched toward closing a $350 million secondary share sale at about a $5 billion valuation. The transaction, while a clear indicator of a robust growth trajectory, is also a concentrated effort at enhancing domestic ownership ahead of its anticipated IPO in late 2025 or early 2026. 

More prominently, Motilal Oswal Financial Services Limited (MOFSL) founders have each invested $50 million in their capacities. The infusion of domestic capital is bound to recalibrate Zepto’s largely foreign shareholder base. Beyond this, MOFSL is orchestrating an additional $250 million secondary share sale with participation from Hero FinCorp and Edelweiss to elevate Indian shareholding from the current 33% to a targeted 50% before its hugely anticipated listing. 

Secondary transactions have been taking centre stage in India’s late-stage venture capital ecosystem in delivering timely liquidity in a cautious funding environment.

A similar dynamic played out in 2024 at Nykaa rival omni-channel beauty platform Purplle, where its Series F round leaned heavily on secondaries for the re-configuration of its investor base. Roughly, 70% of the Rs. 1,000 crore tranche led by Abu Dhabi Investment Authority was secondary, prompting early backers Verlinvest and Goldman Sachs to partially exit. In 2023, JSW Ventures took the opportunity to fully exit at an 18x return via a sale to Manipal Group’s family office. 

Conversely, Lenskart’s $200 million transaction in June 2024 was a pure secondary sale at a $5 billion valuation, with no new capital entering the company. This provided liquidity to early investors like TR Capital while onboarding Fidelity and deepening Temasaek’s stake. This quietly marked the leading eyewear startup’s final moves ahead of a public listing for 2025-26. 

In this context, Lightbox recently witnessed a meaningful liquidity event in December 2024, sparked by Rebel Food’s $210 million series G round, where 75% of the raise came from existing investors selling down their stakes. For us, this was significant momentum divesting a portion of our holding at a valuation of $700–800 million, with the primary infusion pushing Rebel’s valuation to $1.4 billion and enabling us to return nearly a third of our $100 million second fund to LPs.

Social e-commerce platform Meesho’s $550 million round, followed suit in January 2025, dominated by secondary share sales. Early backers Peak XV and WestBridge partially exited, while Tiger Global and others joined at a $3.9–4 billion valuation. Only a primary tranche was raised to meet tax liabilities related to the company’s reverse merger filing with India’s NCLT—part of its “reverse-flip” to re-domicile in preparation for a 2026 IPO.

The Indian Homecoming 

While justifying the rationale behind raising $350 million domestic fundraise, Zepto’s CEO and co-founder Aadit Palicha told CNBC-TV18 that “it stemmed from an aspiration of being an Indian-owned company before hitting D-street.” 

While there is a broader consensus that dozens of companies that had opted to incorporate abroad, primarily in the US and Singapore, are now homeward bound due to stronger IPO prospects. But there is more than meets the eye. Does Zepto’s share sales signal a broader trend for Indian consumer startups? What is the LP assessment of secondaries on liquidity timelines? Are secondaries emerging as a credible path to initial public offerings amidst volatile markets?

Explore this and more in our conversation with Sandeep Murthy ⬇️ 

📰 News

Dream Sports’ Big Swing, Farmely Eyes Expansion

• Dream Sports, developer of fantasy sports app Dream 11, will invest $50 million (around ₹427 crore) in cricket media and broadcasting platforms Crickbuzz and Willow TV, both owned by Times Internet. Avendus Capital acted as the exclusive financial advisor to Times Internet for the transaction. 

  Cricbuzz is a popular website for live scores and cricket commentary while Willow TV is a North American cricket broadcaster. The strategic minority investment aims to “super-charge” global cricket fan experiences through interactive streams and AI-powered personalisation. Both platforms collectively have 185 million monthly users across an expansive 150-country network. The deal strengthens Dream Sports’ distribution network with a steady 230 + million users. 

  In March 2023, Willow TV secured rights to broadcast International Cricket Council events in the US and Canada until the end of 2027. As North America’s largest cricket broadcaster, it streams more than 1,500 live matches each year to users in US and Canada boasting of the leading broadcaster for Middle East and Southeast Asia. 

• Homegrown healthy snacking brand Farmley prepares for the next big leap to transition into a full-scale food brand with its recent $40 million fund raise in Series C round led by L Catterton with participation from DSG Consumer Partners, and BC Jindal. With last year’s revenues at ₹370 crore and a current ARR of ₹500 crore, Farmley is now operating profitably at the EBITDA level, positioning itself as an architect of food habits for the future. The company is also eyeing international markets with its flavoured Makhana range. The clean-label brand is witnessing growing traction in US, Canada, and Australia. It hold ambitions to reach 1.5 lakh stores across India from around 20,000 offline stores in the next 18-20 months. Presently, offline contributes 15-16% of the total sales with majority of the chuck of its sales coming from e-commerce and quick-commerce. 

• Ice cream brand Hocco has raised $10 million as part of a $20 million Series B funding round to expand its production capacity and broaden its geographic footprint, the company said on Thursday. The round was co-led by the Chona Family Office, which founded Hocco and has prior experience in the Indian food and beverage industry, and Sauce VC, a consumer-focused venture capital firm led by Manu Chandra. The brand competes directly with NIC Ice Creams, Go Zero, NOTO, and Minus 30

• Value retail chain India Family Mart has raised $12 million in its Series D fundraise to support its retail expansion plans, it shared in a press note. The round witnessed participation from new and existing investors including Gulf Islamic Investments, Foundation Private Equity, Carpediem Capital Partners, Capri Global Holdings, HNIs, and promoter JP Shukla. It has an aim to cross Rs. 600 crore in revenue while setting up 100 stores by 2029, especially in North and East India.

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