Former BharatPe co-founder and managing director Ashneer Grover has revealed he made a cool Rs 2.25 crore from Zomato IPO within 8 minutes of its opening in July last year.

In his memoir ‘Doglapan’, Grover said that with the IPO being oversubscribed more than 30 times, he got an allotment of shares worth over Rs 3 crore.

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“My RMs (relationship managers), based on grey-market premiums, were expecting the Zomato share to list between Rs 85-90, as against an issue price of Rs 76. I, however, was certain that it would do far better. When the share opened on the listing day at Rs 116 per share, I mandated them to sell all my shares,” he wrote.

By the time the trade got executed, “I got a selling price of Rs 136 per share. With my landing cost after interest being between Rs 82-85, 1 ended up making over Rs 2.25 crore,” he said. “Within eight minutes of the Zomato IPO opening, I had made over Rs 2.25 crore.”

Grover said that he became a little greedy after the Zomato IPO.

“I went in for the Car Trade IPO but ended up losing Rs 25 lakh there,” he said.

Grover, currently facing a court case filed by BharatPe that he co-founded, said that he was bullish on the Zomato IPO on several counts.

“Of course, I knew of Deepinder (Goyal), and I am a big believer in his ability to persevere and keep building big. Fundamentally, with the pandemic the ticket size of their orders had grown, as people were ordering food from home for 3-4 members in the family, as against single rolls in office, thereby increasing Zomato’s absolute margins,” he wrote.

Moreover, with restaurants completely dependent during lockdowns on app orders, there was no risk of the take-rate coming down.

“On the other hand, job insecurity among delivery boys kept delivery costs in check. In fact, COVID magically solved the food delivery economics in the country overnight, just like it skyrocketed UPI penetration,” said Grover.

Grover was in a heated tussle with Kotak Mahindra Bank after their financing arrangement during the IPO of FSN E-Commerce Ventures Ltd., which owns Nykaa, failed to materialise.