Let me read out some numbers for you. This is on the back of what happened yesterday on Dalal Street, where we saw Swiggy quite literally deliver its IPO. So Harsha, it's great to have you here. ₹9,570 crore on day one of listing, that was the market cap that this gentleman and his team managed to deliver yesterday. On the last big round of applause, 5,000 employees have become crorepatis. ₹9,570 crore IPO saw bids of over ₹40,000 crore. So once again, a lot of us here, Harsha, congratulations. I'm not going to start by asking you about the numbers that you think I'm going to ask you about. What time did you finish partying last night?
4:30 AM. Was there a sense of relief at the end of it when you actually saw, when you were ringing the bell on the NSE? What was it? Relief, excitement, what was going on at that point in time in your head actually?
It was fun, excitement, in that order. 80% of the emotion was just relief. Having sold the dream, it was just a vision, and so many folks chose to join us along the way for the journey. So to see that new level of reality be unlocked was just huge relief and excitement as a founder. The second excitement is, I think as a founder, it's also just a new life experience. I'm looking forward to figuring out how that stage looks now.
You know what is going to change, right? You're going to have to talk to us every quarter.
Yeah, absolutely. Look, I think the business has gone through a million changes in the last 10 years. I think it can handle a few more, I'm sure it can. And we look forward to having those conversations with you.
But you know, we're talking about the relief that you felt yesterday as you rang the opening bell at the National Stock Exchange. But in the run-up to the IPO, and a lot of people, you know, we talked about this on stage, we'll ask you all questions about are you ready to IPO? It's not an event, there's a whole journey leading up to that event. I want you to take us through what transpired over the last year plus just to be IPO ready. And in that last lap where the market turned and suddenly sentiment turned, then how much anxiety did you go through then?
I'll answer the question first. Actually, honestly, had no anxiety really, because all the anxiety was about things that you lose anxiety over, so many other things that are outside your control. That's it. All the butterflies were till the decision. Once we felt like, okay, I think we are ready, let's go. After that, I think it's just, you know, wake up and do the best you can. I think we did a great job generally communicating our story in the investor roadshows. We were receptive to feedback that we got on pricing, a bunch of things. So we don't like look back and think of anything that we would change about how we went about it. And that was 90% of our decision. Now, obviously, some of this timing tailwinds can be even more useful. But if you think about it from the day we started our roadshow, the market just kept going in a certain direction that wasn't down, yeah, that wasn't down, absolutely. So but we just powered on. We were like, I think the company is ready. I mean, even if let's say things are tepid on day one, week one, it's a long, long run, yeah. So luckily, I think none of us tethered our emotions at all to what that day one price is going to be. So it's a good thing, a good outcome, great outcome in hindsight. Just on day one, good aftertaste. But we know that you can't do this perfectly. So to end up on the right side of it is a good feeling, absolutely.
And I would imagine that it's a good feeling for all of you at Swiggy and your bankers as well. But let's talk about that. You know, I was talking to your SoftBank about getting the pricing right. And I think this has been one of the issues we've seen with a lot of startup founders and a lot of startup IPOs, where the pricing has left nothing on the table for the retail investor. You did, and you decided to bring down the price because you wanted to leave enough on the table for the retail investor. That decision and making that call, take us through what was going on when you did that.
I think we were clear all along, Shereen, throughout the process. I think if I had to look back and talk about maybe the two major objectives that we were going for: to get a high-quality set of investors who believe in our story and will be there for the long term, that was number one, and eliminate event risk, that was point one. Number two was we weren't greedy for a good aftertaste. It's the beginning of the journey for a lot of new investors to come on board. So honestly, the conversation lasted a few minutes. It was done. Honestly, this could have gone another way. I mean, a few more hours and we may have not priced very well. But it's like everything changes in a few weeks. So we are lucky we were able to price it in hindsight, but there is no way to fully know it before going ahead with it.
Well, let's now talk about the road ahead, Harsha. And you know, you've done enough of investor roadshows and you've probably gone over those numbers in great detail. So what I want to get from you is the big picture. What is changing in India as far as consumption is concerned, as far as consumer behavior is concerned, about the capacity to spend? What are the big shifts, the structural shifts that you're betting on? What gives you hope? What gives you confidence?
Absolutely. So I think if you played out over a couple of decades, we're playing that kind of consumption story in India. I think everything that Swiggy does today, broadly in urban convenience, caters to the top 120-130 million consumers in the country. And we've gotten about 100 plus in food ever transacted. But I think that is only going to go up, up, up if the country's economic growth is going to be strong. GDP per capita is expected to be good. We ride on rails that benefit significantly from this category, from these tailwinds. For example, like if let's say the GDP per capita goes up, discretionary income falls first into the restaurant industry where we're building on top of. So I think we're going to have the opportunity of a lifetime to be building this category at this specific time in India. We couldn't be more thrilled. So we're just blessed to have an opportunity like that. And we think that consumers, the one thing that maybe now we learn even more of is their expectations just keep expanding. They just keep going higher and higher. And now we are starting to look at consumers wanting things in 10 minutes, but now it's also wanting a lot more things in 10 minutes and maybe even like wanting their food in 10 minutes. So consumer expectations just tend to keep expanding. That's the one constant.
Dealing with these consumers, as you said, now food in 10 minutes. I mean, you know, how soon is that like to be a reality? And how much pressure is there now to move down that road? When you say pressure, what kind of pressure?
I think if users want it, then companies need to. I think you just have to keep matching the user's expectations. With any luck, beat their expectations even before they even know they wanted it. So there is no pressure. I mean, you just have to do it. If consumers want it, then you have to build the future.
So you know, speaking about building the future, I think the quick commerce story was written off. The quick commerce story has made a phenomenal comeback in the last two years on the back of what you and Blinkit have been able to do. And it's being held up as the India story, the India playbook. It hasn't worked anywhere else in the world or not as good as it has worked out in India. Why do you think that's the case?
Shereen, there are many, many reasons for it. I think one of the big reasons could be that the physical version of what quick commerce does does not exist in India at some level. I think if you look at how retail has moved in every other geography, because you know, they have big box retailers, then they have modern trade retailers, and then they have corner shops. I think here, the equivalent of what we do is actually the modern trade, which is meaningful but never got built out in the way that it got built out in other parts of the world. So there is a real opportunity that just, it's like almost like a pager movement that we didn't see enough of. So what we think is probably quick commerce caught modern trade very, very early on in the Indian retail journey and it just offered consumers an opportunity to leapfrog into something that just comes to you.
So the lines now, the lines between quick commerce and e-commerce. I mean, you know, as you said, it started with low ticket size items, but now you are pretty much doing just about everything. I mean, or close to everything. I mean, are there going to be any boundaries to what you can do on quick commerce? And is it now e-commerce?
Yeah, I think there aren't that many boundaries. If users are getting used to the platform, they want more and more selection and they keep searching for it. I mean, the way users also search as they see more and more is a very interesting phenomenon. Like maybe in year one, you know, batteries would have been like, type of battery would have been the one that the consumers wanted to search. What is it today? Bedsheets was three months back the most searched, like let's say most searched with less selection than what consumers wanted. So that's an example of why people want bedsheets in 10 minutes, but they want it. They wanted a bedsheet and if it could be available in 10 minutes, then they want it. So I think we will see the expansion of this imagination. Consumers are going to keep asking for more and more. Will all of it, will the entire... probably not, but I think there is a continuum and all of us in the category are figuring out how to extend that continuum and figure out the paradigm that blurs the line even more.
So how large will these pipes be? I mean, you've already built them out significantly to be able to go from, you know, batteries to bedsheets. What are we talking about now in the next few years?
It's very, almost everything that can fit in a reasonably sized vehicle near you will be shipped in 10 minutes. Should be shipped. I mean, I don't know about 10 minutes. I think we will see some optimizations on the operating model. You can't get millions of things in 10 minutes. There is no way that is possible.
You know, I want to go back to the comment that you made yesterday while you were ringing the bell, saying this was a germ of an idea which is today this now listed entity with a market cap. When you listed at ₹9,570 crore, what did it take, Harsha, to go from a germ of an idea to building out Swiggy to what it is in terms of culture, in terms of purpose, in terms of vision, in terms of strategy? What has been the most challenging aspect of putting Swiggy together?
