Zomato: Acquire Blinkit?

You are the CEO of a publicly-listed food-delivery company in India. Revenue is ~$1B annualized, ~30% YoY growth. Your closest competitor is similar size. Both of you are noticing the same shift: 10-minute grocery delivery (~$1B category in India, growing 3x year-over-year) has emerged as a new consumer habit, dominated by a 4-year-old startup called Blinkit.

Blinkit is unprofitable but growing 5x YoY. Your competitor is publicly building their own 10-minute grocery vertical (Instamart). You have three options on the table. The decision affects ~$2B of capital allocation and the company's positioning for the next decade.

The principle: When a competitor's adjacent category is growing faster than your core, the bet to make is acquisition before they reach scale — not parallel-build. By the time you've matched them organically, they've captured the consumer habit you needed to compete for.