Zepto filed its Updated Draft Red Herring Prospectus with SEBI on June 9, 2026, planning to raise ₹8,010 crore through a fresh issue along with an OFS component. It would be the first dedicated quick commerce company to list on Indian exchanges. The IPO has been in the works since late 2025. Here is what investors need to know before the subscription opens.
Zepto IPO 2026: Key highlights
Zepto's listing would give public market investors direct exposure to quick commerce for the first time with no food delivery attached and no e-commerce noise. Just the category itself.
What is Zepto?
Founded in July 2021 by Aadit Palicha and Kaivalya Vohra, two Stanford dropouts, Zepto now runs 1,139 dark stores across 66 cities, serves 4.80 crore annual transacting users, and handles around 2.33 million orders a day. Four years from idea to a $7 billion business.
Why is the Zepto IPO generating investor interest?
Blinkit is inside Eternal. Swiggy Instamart is part of Swiggy. There is no standalone quick commerce stock in India right now. Zepto would be the first, which is the simplest explanation for why it is getting attention.
Zepto IPO 2026: Latest update
SEBI approval came in May 2026. The Updated DRHP followed within weeks.
IPO filing and regulatory progress
Zepto got SEBI's formal nod on May 8, 2026, after filing a confidential DRHP in December 2025. The Updated DRHP filed on June 9 is publicly available on the SEBI website. For the first time, investors can actually dig into the financials and risk factors.
Expected listing timeline
The listing is projected for the July to September quarter of 2026. The exact date comes after the Red Herring Prospectus is filed and the price band is set.
Latest developments around the IPO
The UDRHP flags that both founders received ED summons in April 2026 under FEMA proceedings. They complied and submitted the required documents. The matter is unresolved. It is in the risk factors section for a reason. Read it before forming a view.
Zepto IPO details at a glance
Part of this IPO is the company raising money. Part is early investors getting out. Knowing the split matters.
Expected IPO size and fundraising target
The total issue is expected around ₹9,500 to ₹10,000 crore, with roughly ₹8,010 crore as a fresh issue. Zepto is also considering a pre-IPO placement of up to ₹1,602 crore, so any amount raised there gets deducted from the fresh issue.
Fresh issue and offer for sale (OFS)
The OFS covers up to 113.46 million shares from existing investors, including Contrary ZEP Holdings, Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, Kaiser Permanente Group Trust, and Razor Ventures Zepto. When you apply, some of your money goes to the company. Some goes to investors who are leaving. The final RHP will tell you the exact split.
Proposed stock exchange listing
The listing is proposed on both BSE and NSE. Banks running the issue include Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JM Financial, Axis Capital, HSBC, IIFL Securities, and Motilal Oswal.
Zepto business overview
The core bet Zepto made was simple. If the execution is fast enough and reliable enough, urban Indians will pay for it. The dark store model with small fulfilment centres close to where people live turned that bet into a working operation.
Quick commerce business model
Zepto delivers groceries, FMCG products, electronics, and daily essentials, earning through product commissions, advertising, and logistics fees. The advertising line is where things get interesting. Ad revenue went from ₹49 crore in FY24 to ₹1,636 crore in FY26. That is a 33x jump, and it carries high margins with almost no additional delivery cost. That number matters more than most headlines about Zepto acknowledge.
Market presence and expansion strategy
Zepto closed FY26 with 1,139 dark stores, 75 warehouses, and 47.97 million annual transacting users. The approach has been density before geography. Fill existing cities properly before entering new ones. Shorter delivery radii mean lower costs per order, which is how the unit economics eventually get to where they need to be.
Zepto financial performance before IPO
Revenue is growing fast. The company is still losing money. The question investors actually need to answer is whether the path to profitability is credible at the valuation being asked.
Revenue growth trends
Order volumes grew at a CAGR of roughly 119.5% between FY24 and FY26. Total orders went from 70.7 million to 640.18 million between FY23 and FY26. But the advertising revenue growth is the more important signal because it shows a business building margin without building proportional cost, which is a different story from raw delivery volume.
Profitability and losses explained
Zepto is loss-making going into the IPO. Dark store expansion, leases, technology, and customer acquisition are all costing money. Profitability depends on advertising take rates going up, basket sizes getting larger, and dark store margins improving as density increases. Whether all of that happens on a timeline that justifies the listing price is the question worth sitting with.
Zepto IPO valuation and shareholding structure
P/E does not apply here. The company has no earnings. Price-to-sales relative to peers and the implied Blinkit valuation inside Eternal's market cap are the more useful numbers to work with.
Expected valuation in 2026
Zepto is targeting roughly $7 billion, around ₹66,000 crore. The grey market valuation has come down from its peak, though grey market pricing tells you about sentiment, not fundamentals. The price band in the RHP is what actually matters.
Key investors and shareholders
Zepto's Series H in October 2025 raised $450 million at a $7 billion valuation, led by CalPERS, with General Catalyst, Avra, Lightspeed, StepStone, and Nexus Venture Partners. A separate $350 million round in November 2024 was entirely domestic, with family offices and individual investors. This was a deliberate move before the public listing.
How will Zepto use the IPO proceeds?
The use of proceeds section in the UDRHP is reasonably specific, which is worth noting.
Expansion of dark store network
A portion goes toward new dark stores and lease costs on existing ones. More stores per city, shorter delivery distances, and lower per-order costs are the factors forming the logic connecting this spending to eventual profitability.
Technology and infrastructure investments
The rest is earmarked for technology and cloud infrastructure, marketing through subsidiary Zepto Marketplace Private Limited, and acquisitions not yet identified.
Zepto IPO risks investors should know
Loss-making company. Two well-funded competitors. Two unresolved regulatory matters. These are the facts going into the listing.
Competition in quick commerce
Blinkit has Eternal behind it and leads on market share. Swiggy Instamart has Swiggy's food delivery base feeding it customers. Zepto does not have either of those advantages. It has to win on execution alone, which it has done so far, but the competitive pressure is not going away.
Regulatory and profitability risks
The ED's FEMA proceedings and the CCI's anti-competitive pricing investigation are both open. No adverse orders yet. But unresolved regulatory matters heading into a public listing are a risk, not a footnote. The path to profitability is also not clearly mapped. Cash burn continues, and positive operating cash flow is not imminent.
Should you consider investing in the Zepto IPO?
Depends on what kind of investor you are and what you actually believe about quick commerce.
Factors to evaluate before applying
Read the UDRHP. Look at who is selling in the OFS. Compare the valuation to Blinkit's implied price inside Eternal. You are buying future cash flows that do not exist yet, so you must know what assumptions that requires before applying.
Investor suitability
This is a 3 to 5 year investment if you are buying for fundamentals. Quick commerce needs to keep growing, Zepto needs to keep its market position, and the advertising business needs to scale further. If you are applying for a listing pop, watch the subscription numbers, but know that consumer tech IPOs can disappoint just as fast as they excite.
Conclusion
Zepto's IPO is one of the more interesting listings of 2026. The business works, the sector is real, and the pure-play positioning is genuinely unique. The risks are also real and openly disclosed. Read the filing. Understand the valuation. Know your time horizon. Then decide.
