Zomato cofounder Mohit Gupta quits; third big exit this month

Gupta is the third cofounder to exit Zomato and his is the third senior level exit at the firm this month.

Rahul Ganjoo, head of new initiatives,
had resigned earlier this week while Siddharth Jhawar
quit the company as vice president and head of intercity legends service earlier this month.

Zomato had also witnessed cofounder Gaurav Gupta quit the company two months after its initial public offering (IPO) in July 2021. Earlier Zomato’s initial cofounder Pankaj Chaddah quit the company in 2018.
Both Gaurav Gupta and Mohit Gupta had been elevated as cofounders in 2019 and 2020.

Mohit Gupta, had held various positions at Zomato including being its chief executive of its food delivery unit and also head of its new initiatives.

“Over the past few years, I have seen Deepi (Zomato cofounder and CEO Deepinder Goyal) become an even more mature and confident leader who is now completely capable of leading the business into a bright future with all of you by his side,” Gupta said in a farewell note the company’s employees. “It is with this confidence that I am deciding to move on from Zomato to seek the other unknown adventures that life holds for me. As I look ahead, I am full of excitement for the vision that Zomato, Blinkit, Hyperpure and Feeding India are building towards.”

Prior to joining Zomato in 2018, Gupta was chief operating officer at travel booking platform MakeMyTrip. Earlier, he served as vice president of marketing at PepsiCo India.

Zomato had last week declared its earnings for the September quarter when it narrowed its quarterly loss to Rs 250.8 crore from Rs 434.9 crore a year earlier.

In the shareholder letter for the second-quarter results, CEO Goyal had noted that while Zomato’s food delivery business was growing and steadily moving towards profitability, “there is room for the business to grow much faster than what it is currently trending at”.

Earlier this week, Zomato said it will discontinue food delivery service through its app in the UAE on November 24.

Shares of Zomato were marginally down and closed at Rs 67.15 apiece on Friday. It is still trading at a lower value than its issue price of Rs 76 apiece.

With macroeconomic pressures continuing to drive a rout in public market stocks, Zomato’s peers and new-age internet companies including the likes of PB Fintech, Paytm, and Nykaa have also seen significant erosion in their market cap as markets have turned choppy.