Business Standard

Quick commerce unicorn Zepto makes Ankit Agarwal chief product officer

Senior executive will be in charge of company's supply chain and consumer management in new role

Zepto

Aryaman Gupta New Delhi

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Zepto, the quick commerce firm that recently became India’s first unicorn this year, has elevated Ankit Agarwal to the position of chief product officer.

Agarwal will be in charge of Zepto’s end-to-end product management, from consumers to supply chain and last-mile delivery.

“We're not following trends; we're setting them. I'm excited to be part of that team that is revolutionising commerce in India,” said Agarwal.

Zepto, which is backed by Y Combinator-backed, became the first Indian startup this year to be valued at more than $1 billion and achieve unicorn status. The company raised $200 million in a Series E funding round led by the StepStone Group at a $1.4 billion valuation, making it India’s 110th unicorn.
 

Agarwal, who joined Zepto in August 2022 as senior vice president of product, has worked with Flipkart, Delhivery and Infra.Market before.

At Zepto, he led its fulfilment charter that spans supply chain, last mile and finance technology.

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“Ankit joined us about a year ago, and in that time he has built strong rigour within the fulfilment charter. We've been able to ship world class technology over the last year; everything from building our entire last mile stack in-house to building and rolling out a warehouse management system in less than six months, and many other needle-moving initiatives,” said Kaivalya Vohra, cofounder and chief technology officer, Zepto.

Agarwal embodies the best of Zepto’s culture, “demonstrating his ability time and time again to operate with incredible ownership, rigour, ambition, and deep customer centricity; I'm confident that there is no one better suited in the country to lead the team on our journey to establish Zepto as the best product company in India,” said Vohra.

Zepto, earlier this year, rejigged its top management by elevating Vikas Sharma, who was earlier the senior vice-president of operations, to chief operating officer. Before that, it had appointed CoinSwitch’s Ramesh Bafna as chief financial officer.

Zepto had grown 300 per cent year-on-year this year and its dark stores, which contributed to over 50 per cent of the business, were now profitable. The startup is on track to turn cash flow positive in the next 12–15 months and is eyeing a public listing in the next 18–24 months, Business Standard reported earlier.

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Zepto has said it is likely to achieve $1 billion in annualised sales in the next few quarters. It handles 300,000-400,000 orders a day, while its average order value is between Rs 400 and Rs 500.

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First Published: Sep 08 2023 | 12:19 PM IST

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