New Delhi:

Shortly after announcing plans to offer its café service as a separate app, Zepto has elevated Shashank Shekhar Sharma as the CXO of Zepto Cafe, effective December 2024.

Sharma, who has been building Zepto Cafe since its inception, will oversee Café operations, footprint expansion, equipment procurement, quality control, and the end-to-end customer experience of Zepto Café, a company statement said.

Previously serving as Business Head at Zepto Cafe, Mr Sharma will continue to report to Zepto President Vinay Dhanani.

“After 2 years of deep work, iteration, and disciplined scaling, Zepto Café is now at 30K+ orders/day and what we believe to be clear customer product-market-fit and solid unit economics.

“This excellent execution was only possible because of the leadership of Shashank Shekhar Sharma, who worked tirelessly with his team to turn Zepto Café from a fringe idea to what could be the next revolution in food QSR in India,” Zepto co-founder and CEO Aadit Palicha said in a LinkedIn post on Thursday.

Earlier this month, the young CEO in a social media post said that Zepto Cafe will be soon launched as a separate app, and highlighted the rapid scaling of the cafe service which has motivated the separate offering.

“We’re launching a separate app for Zepto Cafe next week! The team is shipping an MVP (minimum viable product) and iterating quickly, so it may not be perfect on Day 1, but it’s worth it to launch fast.

“Zepto Cafe is scaling rapidly; we’re launching 100+ cafes a month and already clocking more than 30 thousand orders per day,” Mr Palicha wrote.

Zepto Cafe was launched in April 2022 as a division of Zepto, which itself was founded in July 2021 by Aadit Palicha and Kaivalya Vohra.

Last month, Zepto revealed plans to broaden its café service to key cities, launching over 120 cafés in locations including Mumbai, Delhi, and Bengaluru, with upcoming expansions to Hyderabad, Chennai, and Pune.

“The response has been phenomenal, with Zepto Cafe now achieving an (estimated) Annual Run Rate (ARR) GMV of Rs 160 crore with just 15 per cent of our expanding dark store network with proven unit economics.

“As we expand into new cities and launch 100-plus new cafes every month, we are on track to achieve an ARR of Rs 1,000 crore by the next fiscal year,” Mr Palicha had said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Aadit Palicha, the 22-year-old CEO of Zepto, has weighed in on work-life balance, suggesting he had “nothing against” it. On Wednesday, Mr Palicha said, “I have nothing against work-life balance. In fact, I recommend it to all our competitors.”

I have nothing against work-life balance. In fact, I recommend it to all our competitors

— Aadit Palicha (@aadit_palicha) December 4, 2024

This statement drew immediate attention, especially as it was followed by a clarification: “FYI, not my quote – read it from an interview with Daksh Gupta.”

FYI, not my quote – read it from an interview of Daksh Gupta.

— Aadit Palicha (@aadit_palicha) December 4, 2024

The post was a nod to Daksh Gupta, the 23-year-old Indian-origin CEO of AI startup Greptile, who has been in the spotlight for endorsing long work hours. Last month, Mr Gupta shared similar sentiments on social media, sparking a debate about work expectations in the modern tech industry.

Mr Palicha’s comment quickly generated a range of responses, with many users connecting it to a recent viral Reddit post. In that post, an anonymous user alleged that Zepto’s working environment was “toxic,” claiming it pressured employees with demanding expectations.

The post detailed allegations of employees working exhausting 14-hour shifts, intensifying discussions about workplace well-being in the corporate sector. It also claimed that Mr Palicha starts his day at 2 pm due to difficulties waking up early, which in turn leads to meetings being scheduled at 2 am.

The post also suggested that Zepto hires junior staff to reduce costs and hinted at a significant round of layoffs expected in March, with many departments reportedly suspending new recruitment.

Toxic work culture ft. Zepto
byu/Scary_Split3157 inStartUpIndia

Mr Palicha’s post on X soon sparked a flurry of reactions from users.

One user joked that he “woke up early” to write the post.

so you woke up early to tweet this lol ????

— Sneha (@itspsneha) December 4, 2024

“Ah, burning the midnight oil to dunk on toxic work culture posts on Reddit? Bold strategy! So, what time’s your first meeting today—asking for your coffee machine,” read another comment.

Ah, burning the midnight oil to dunk on toxic work culture posts on Reddit? Bold strategy!

So, what time’s your first meeting today—asking for your coffee machine

— Monica Jasuja (@jasuja) December 4, 2024

Another user chimed in, suggesting, “Anyway, since you’re here, maybe get a few things fixed on the delivery partner’s app too? Not everyone has the voice to rant on Reddit or twitter but they still deserve good experiences. Let’s make that happen.”

anyway,
since you’re here, maybe get a few things fixed on the delivery partner’s app too?

not everyone has the voice to rant on reddit or twitter but they still deserve good experiences

let’s make that happenhttps://t.co/OK6FqBn9sj

— Sneha (@itspsneha) December 4, 2024

Aadit Palicha, along with fellow Stanford dropout Kaivalya Vohra, co-founded Zepto in 2021.

The death of a 26-year-old Ernst and Young India consultant in July 2024 allegedly due to the overwhelming pressures of her job led to a fresh discussion on the work-life balance.

Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy also faced flak for suggesting that Indians must work for at least 70 hours a week.

On Wednesday, Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi expressed his disagreement with Mr Murthy, saying, “Employees are not slaves. Working longer hours doesn’t mean better productivity. Several countries have switched to a 4-day work week and are doing better.”

Zepto fundraise was led exclusively by Motilal Oswal’s Private Wealth division. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Zepto on Friday (November 22, 2024) announced a $350 million fundraise in its latest round that the quick commerce company said marks the largest 100% domestic fundraise within India’s startup ecosystem.

The round included investments from Indian HNIs, family offices, and leading financial institutions. The fundraise was led exclusively by Motilal Oswal’s Private Wealth division.

The fundraise saw participation from several family offices and investors including Motilal Oswal AMC and Raamdeo Agarwal, the Taparia Family Office, Mankind Pharma Family Office, Cello Family Office, Haldiram Snacks Family Office, Sekhsaria Family Office, Kalyan Family Office, Happy Forgings Family Office, Mothers Recipe Family Office (Desai Brothers) and notable individuals such as Abhishek Amitabh Bachchan and Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar, among others.

“This round reflected the growing commitment of Indian investors to back transformative startups”, Zepto said. “This “landmark funding” comes at a time when India’s economy is accelerating its shift toward domestically driven growth,” Zepto said.

“When we started this venture, the risk appetite among domestic investors was limited, especially to trust 18-year-olds with their money. Today, we are humbled to have reached a place in India’s economic growth where we have not only fostered that trust but also spearheaded a fundraise of this magnitude, which will hopefully set a precedent for the startups that follow,” Aadit Palicha, CEO and Co-founder of Zepto said.

Ashish Shanker, MD and CEO, Motilal Oswal Private Wealth, said Motilal Oswal is a strong believer in the future of digital businesses, particularly quick commerce players such as Zepto, as potential free cash flow powerhouses.

“India’s biggest and marquee family office clients of Motilal Oswal Private Wealth share this excitement and have participated in this once-in-a-lifetime journey of value creation,” Mr. Shanker said.

Aadit Palicha and Kaivalya Vohra were students at Stanford University, California, studying Computer Sciences when they dropped out of college and chose to build a ten-minute-delivery startup which is now valued at $5 billion. At the NDTV World Summit, Mr Palicha shared how Zepto was built and how his parents reacted to the decision to leave college.

“On the outside, it looks like a very cliched Silicon Valley story, you drop out of college to start a company, but before you took that step, Kaivalya and I were tinkering around for a year and as kids we love coding and we used to build small projects for fun. We were supposed to go to California but during the first wave of Covid, we were put back to Mumbai. I didn’t really see a value in online education in that period, so we took a call to take a year off and build something interesting,” Mr Palicha said.

“Most of our peers at Stanford were doing their internship at Google, and Goldman Sachs, we didn’t have anything of that lined up and we took a call to start experimenting,” he said. 

Read more: “People Ask Me Why Do You Still Work Like This…”: PM At NDTV World Summit

To a question on how he came up with the idea of quick delivery, the Zepto CEO said, “We were sitting in sher-e-punjab in Andheri East in Mumbai, and during the pandemic, you couldn’t get groceries delivered. Offline options were mostly shut and online would take seven days. We started with a WhatsApp group and over a year we kept talking to customers and tweaking the model.”

“We started building out the first version of Zepto a year after the WhatsApp group and got to a meaningful scale before we decided to drop out,” he said.

How Parents Reacted

“It was shocking for parents. I remember Kevaliya’s mother burst into tears and said what have you done to my son, you have brainwashed him…but we had real numbers to bank on. At that time we were doing a few million dollars in revenue and we were growing fast…We had the substance to decide with conviction…Our fathers were a little bit comfortable with it because they saw the numbers,” he said, adding, “Kaivalya’s mother often says what a beautiful life you have given up on.”

Read more: “India Has Credibility To Mediate In Ukraine War”: David Cameron At NDTV World Summit

Zepto competes in India’s hyper-competitive grocery delivery space. Rivals in the market include e-commerce giant Amazon’s India unit and homegrown competitors such as Swiggy Instamart, Blinkit, and conglomerate Tata Group’s BigBasket.

This year, Aadit and Kaivalya were featured on the list of richest Indians released by Hurun. Twenty-one-year-old Kaivalya Vohra has a net worth of Rs 3,600 crore, while Aadit, 22, has a net worth of Rs 4,300 crore.

New Delhi:

With Navratri festivities drawing to a close, quick commerce firm Zepto co-founder and CEO Aadit Palicha took to LinkedIn to inform that the platform sold over 1 Lakh dandiya sticks during the season.

“What a day! Closing out Navratri 2024 with a grateful heart, seeing the beauty of India’s diversity through our users, sellers, brands, and every Zeptonian, who made it all happen. From essentials to festive picks, thank you for making us part of India’s celebrations across nine incredible days,” he wrote on LinkedIn.

Through graphics, he shared that the Mumbai-headquartered firm sold 1,00,000 plus dandiya sticks during the season.

He further said sales for fasting-friendly chips, Kattu and Rajgira atta, grew significantly compared to last year’s Navratri sales.

Mr Palicha also shared how Zepto’s dark stores indulged in Navratri festivities across the country.

In Coimbatore, Kochi, Chennai, and Bangalore, the stores celebrated Ayudha Puja, honouring tools and equipment. The Bhawanipore store in Kolkata embraced the lively essence of Durga Ashtami, while the Gota store in Ahmedabad kept the festive spirit alive with an energetic Garba event.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

Kaivalya Vohra, co-founder of quick commerce app Zepto, is the youngest to feature on the list of richest Indians released by Hurun. The 21-year-old has a net worth of Rs 3,600 crore. His co-founder, 22-year old Aadit Palicha, is second youngest on the list.

Vohra and Palicha were students of Stanford University, who later dropped out of their computer science course and pursued entrepreneurship. Both friends started Zepto in 2021 to fulfil the growing demand for quick and contactless delivery of essential items in the days of the Covid pandemic.

Zepto competes in India’s hyper-competitive grocery delivery space. Rivals in the market include e-commerce giant Amazon’s India unit and homegrown competitors such as Swiggy Instamart, Blinkit, and conglomerate Tata Group’s BigBasket.

At 19, Kaivalya Vohra made his debut on the IIFL Wealth-Hurun India Rich List 2022 and since then has featured on the list every year.

The 2024 Hurun India Rich List has marked a significant milestone, with India’s billionaire count surpassing 300 for the first time. This esteemed list features a diverse range of individuals from various sectors, including entertainment, corporate, and quick commerce.

Gautam Adani and his family secured the top spot in the 2024 Hurun India Rich List, with a wealth of Rs 11.6 lakh crore, surpassing Mukesh Ambani. In 2020, Mr Adani was fourth on the list. Mr Adani’s wealth has surged by 95 per cent in the last one year. His rise is marked by recovery following the Hindenburg report, which had raised significant scrutiny.

Shah Rukh Khan, the Bollywood superstar, also secured a spot on the list, solidifying his status as one of India’s most successful and wealthiest celebrities.

Radha Vembu, the founder of Zoho Corporation, and Anand Chandrasekaran, a seasoned tech executive, are also part of this elite group.