Zepto preps for public listing in 2 years; Brings in Ramesh Bafna as CFO to lead IPO process

• Ramesh Bafna joins Zepto as chief financial officer of quick commerce startup Zepto.
• Key mandate is to take the company public in two years and make the company EBITDA positive before that.
• Zepto claims metrics are strong and several of its dark stores are already profitable.

The finance function is inevitably the most important function in any start-up, but when you’re talking about capital raise and public listing, the chief financial officer is the captain of the ship. With an eye on public listing two years down the line, quick commerce start-up, Zepto, has roped in Ramesh Bafna as the chief financial officer.

Aadit Palicha, CEO and Co-founder of Zepto told Business Insider, “We are at an inflexion point in our journey and are confident that we can go public in two years time. In this respect we are excited to have Ramesh join us and his core mandate will be to take the company public.”

Ramesh Bafna has held leadership roles across finance, audit and business in companies like Wipro, Flipkart and Myntra. Prior to his new gig at Zepto, Bafna has worked with CoinSwitch and EvenFlow as the CFO in both these assignments.

According to Bafna, “Zepto has made industry-leading progress on profitability, while continue to grow fast. To take the company public in 2-3 years, my focus will be to build a strong controllership infrastructure, bring the company's compliance to the next level, and most importantly, get the overall business to EBITDA positive, which I believe is possible in a reasonable timeframe.”

Zepto was born at the peak of the pandemic with a proposition to home-deliver food and groceries to consumers. The company was founded by two teenagers in 2021 - Kaivalya Vohra and Aadit Palicha. The company, which plans to take on e-commerce biggies over time, will need capital to further fuel its growth.

Palicha says that a large number of Zepto’s stores are profitable and that the financial metrics of the company are very strong. To this effect, the IPO planning process will be key for the company and its CFO.

The funding winter that set in last year has made it hard for start-ups to raise capital. India saw a massive inflow of capital during the pandemic, but funding in the March quarter of this calendar year dropped 75%. In the March quarter start-ups have raised only $2.8 bn compare to $11.8 bn last year in the same period.

Funding volumes have shrunk primarily because investors are not keen on late stage start-ups. Late stage funding has declined in the March quarter by 79%.

Zepto’s Co-founder and CEO, Aadit Palicha, also said, "Ramesh is a best-in-class e-commerce CFO and he will build a best-in-class Finance team at Zepto. Through disciplined execution, Zepto is delivering incredible progress on growth and profitability. To take Zepto public in 2-3 years, we believe we need an incredible CFO and Ramesh is the right person for the job. I’m looking forward to this journey of building a generational company with him onboard!”