Top VC firm Sequoia Capital India has sold 17.2 crore shares of Zomato in two tranches in the open market, lowering down its stake in the online food aggregator to 4.4 per cent from earlier 6.41 per cent.

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In a fresh filing with the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), Zomato said Sequoia Capital India sold some 6.7 crore shares in the September 6-October 14, 2021 period and 10.5 crore shares between June 27-August 25, 2022.

The stock sales were performed by Sequoia Capital India Growth Investment Holdings I and SCI Growth Investments II, according to Zomato.

Sequoia Capital India Investments IV also received 45,153,346 incremental equity shares on August 10 owing to the acquisition of quick-commerce delivery platform Blinkit, which further has a lock-in period of one year.

Sequoia Capital India joins a list of private market investors like Delivery Hero, Moore Strategic Ventures, and Tiger Global, which have sold their shares in Zomato in the past months, either in open market or via block deals, as the online food delivery platform`s stock gets hammered.

On Friday, Zomato shares closed around Rs 61.85.

Earlier this month, ride-hailing platform Uber sold its 7.8 per cent stake worth over $390 million in Zomato.

Uber, which suffered around $707 million loss in its Zomato investment in the first half of this year, sold its share in the food delivery aggregator via a block deal on stock exchanges that has been bought by several global and Indian VCs.

The Zomato block deal was executed at Rs 50.44 per share equivalent to 612 million or 7.8 per cent of total outstanding shares.

In a statement to IANS, Zomato had said that "We are a public company and are not privy to what our shareholders are doing with their shares".

According to the company, the losses for Blinkit are coming down every month -- from Rs 2,040 million (about $26 million) in January 2022 to Rs 929 million ($12 million) in July.

The 10-minute delivery platform was acquired by Zomato for Rs 4,447 crore (about $568 million).