Swiggy’s $1.3 Billion IPO Is Fueled by 13-Minute Deliveries

On a summer afternoon in 2020, Sriharsha Majety logged into an investor call at food-delivery startup Swiggy Ltd.’s Bengaluru headquarters and pitched a business idea: lightning-fast grocery deliveries.

Some investors were skeptical and talks turned heated. India was in the thick of Covid lockdowns, and the online grocery business was already crowded with deep-pocketed players such as Tata Group’s BigBasket, DMart and Amazon.com Inc. But Majety, who at 33 had built Swiggy into one of India’s largest food-delivery firms, assured backers that his plan had the sinews of a big business. He ultimately prevailed.

Now, as trading ...