Zomato has given its chief operating officer (COO) Gaurav Gupta the title of co-founder at the online food delivery and restaurant-discovery company. It was announced by co-founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal on Friday in an internal mail, a copy of which has been seen by TOI.
The move is an unprecedented one in India’s internet ecosystem, underlining the importance being given to experienced operators by founders as companies scale. Gupta, who worked as a consultant at AT Kearney for a decade, has been with Zomato for nearly four years and was made COO at the company in January 2018.
“Starting today, we are going to call GG ‘co-founder and COO’, in addition to his COO role. This is not a ‘reward’ — this is empowerment, for the right person, to seamlessly be able to level-up to a role which he has shown the potential for,” said Goyal in his internal mail. Zomato confirmed the development but declined to share further details.
While in the past, few startups have given early employees co-founder titles, the case of Zomato stands out as it comes at a much later stage in the evolution of the company. Zomato was founded in 2008 and is backed by investors like Chinese payments giant Ant Financial, venture capital firm Sequoia and Naukri-owner Info Edge with a valuation of over $2 billion.
Those tracking the ecosystem said the move is rare in a market like India where founders typically have not given way to operators and professional CEOs, with the exception being Kalyan Krishnamurthy at Flipkart. In the past, ride-hailing giant Ola had given early employee Pranay Jivrajka the title of a founding partner in 2017.
“This is a good sign, which shows the startup ecosystem is maturing and that execution is key. To build value, you will need a great team, and it’s a good sign that founders are willing to share credit and value with others who are contributing,” said Revant Bhate, partner at venture firm Kstart, who was earlier entrepreneur in residence at Faasos. The development comes about a year after Pankaj Chaddah, who co-founded Zomato with Goyal in 2008, moved out of an operating role at the company after a decade.
In his internal mail, Goyal has credited the 38-year-old Gupta with success of businesses such as subscription service Zomato Gold, Hyperpure (where it supplies fruits, vegetables and meat to restaurants), events unit Zomaland and also upcoming payments business under Zomato Pay.
Leave a Reply