Listed firms can't act like start-ups

Start-ups don't care that mad-money funding comes to a hard stop after an IPO

A few days ago, online food delivery platform Zomato acquired quick-commerce grocery delivery platform Blinkit (earlier Grofers) for Rs 4,447 crore (about $568 million) in an all-stock deal. The deal has raised a lot of eyebrows. For one, Zomato has just about Rs 1,250 crore on its balance sheet and is badly haemorrhaging, losing Rs 750 crore of cash from its operations in 2021-22 alone. Second, the acquisition comes at a time when Zomato’s own future is cloudy. Last year, it reported a loss of almost Rs 1,100 crore and under the current business model, there is no chance that