Zomato dips 4% as co-founder, CTO Gunjan Patidar quits company

Gunjan Patidar is the fourth co-founder to exit the company since 2018 and also the fourth top level exit in the company in past two months.

Shares of Zomato dipped 4 per cent to Rs 57.65 on the BSE in Tuesday’s intra-day trades after the food aggregator platform company said in a regulatory filing that Gunjan Patidar, its co-founder and chief technology officer had quit. Patidar was part of the original founders team at Zomato.

Patidar was one of Zomato's first three employees and built the core tech systems for the company. Over the past ten years or so, he also nurtured a stellar tech leadership team, capable of taking on the mantle of leading the tech function going forward, said the company in a filing.

However, Gunjan Patidar was not designated as key managerial personnel under the Companies Act, 2013 and the SEBI (Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, 2015. Hence, this disclosure is being made voluntarily, Zomato said.

Gunjan Patidar exit is the latest in a string of high-profile resignations in recent times. He is the fourth co-founder to exit the company since 2018 and also the fourth top level exit in the company in two months following the exit of Mohit Gupta (co-founder), Rahul Ganjoo (Head of New Initiatives) & Siddharth Jhawar (Head Intercity Food delivery service). READ MORE

At 09:34 AM; the stock recovered from its intra-day low, but was down 1.3 per cent at Rs 59.45 on the BSE. In comparison, the S&P BSE Sensex was down 0.04 per cent at 61,141.

In past one month, Zomato has underperformed the market by falling 15 per cent, as against 3 per cent decline in the benchmark index. In past one year, it more-than-halved or tanked 57 per cent, as compared to 5 per cent rise in the Sensex. The stock had hit a record low of Rs 40.55 on July 27, 2022. It touched a record high of Rs 169 on November 16, 2021.

Zomato made its stock market debut on July 23, 2021. The company issued shares at price of Rs 76 per share.

Zomato with its large strong footprint across 23 countries is well placed to benefit from the immense potential in the food delivery industry. The business is not losing cash anymore. Adj. EBITDA broke-even in food business. At company level, goal is to break-even in Q4FY23, or by Q2FY24. Blinkit integration post acquisition went well and it has not lost any market share in the last quarter, Motilal Oswal Financial Services said in a note.