The sequence of events leading up to the exit of Gaurav Gupta from Zomato

• Gaurav Gupta had joined Zomato in 2015 and was elevated to the position of co-founder last year
• Zomato has elevated Gunjan Patidar, Mohit Gupta and Akriti Chopra as the co-founder over the last 2 years.
• Zomato has been carrying out clean up drive on the side by striking off entities and vertices that didn’t contribute much to its revenue.

Zomato’s initial public offering (IPO) was the watershed moment of the Indian startup ecosystem, paving the way for many other such newage businesses to hit the public market.It was all hunky dory till the time of the IPO but there have been a series of changes — both good and bad — in Zomato’s business.

The most recent one is the exit of co-founder Gaurav Gupta, who was the head of supply at Zomato and one of the key people behind the company’s run-up to the listing.

Gupta had joined Zomato back in 2015 as a business head of table reservation. He was promoted to the position of global advertising sales head in 2017 and as the chief operating officer of the company in 2018. Zomato also elevated Gupta as the co-founder of the company in 2019.

Over the past two years, Zomato has elevated several key management personnels to the position of co-founders. This includes Gunjan Patidar, Mohit Gupta and Akriti Chopra. The company was originally founded by Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah in 2008.

The report about Gupta’s exit was first reported by Moneycontrol.

Business Insider reached out to Zomato and Gaurav Gupta seeking confirmation of the report. The article will be updated as and when we get their response.

A report by Economic Times citing sources noted that Tuesday is Gupta’s last day at Zomato. He will be using this break to spend time with family and plan out his next professional sprint. Gupta may also look to start his own venture soon.

The story just doesn’t end here. Over the past months there have been several changes in Zomato's business and structure as well.

July 2021:

In terms of financial performance, Zomato’s reported a consolidated loss of ₹356 crore in the March to June quarter of 2021. This was a significant increase from ₹99.8 crore reported in the same time frame last year.

The company’s operational revenue also hit ₹916 crore in Q1 of FY22 compared to ₹283.5 crore revenue in the same quarter last year.

August 2021:

The company has started a clean up drive and is closing its international entities that had minimal or no contribution to the company’s revenue.

This includes Singapore-based Zomato Media Private Limited (ZMPL) and UK-based Zomato UK Limited (ZUL). The company has also divested its stake in its US-based subsidiary Nextable Inc., for $100,000.

August 2021:

Besides this Zomato has also pulled the plug on groceries and nutraceutical business, which Gupta was overlooking as per the Moneycontrol report. "This business can potentially be a large value driver for Zomato in the future,” Gupta had said last year.

Though Zomato had already closed down the groceries business earlier this year, it planned to re-enter it with more preparations. The Gurugram-based company now hopes to rely on groceries delivery giant Grofers, in which it invested in June.

Zomato had also shut down its alcohol delivery business earlier this year due to low demand, different regulations in different states, and that it found the unit economics not feasible.

September 2021:

The share price of Zomato has also been growing since it got listed on July 14. The company’s shares touched ₹152.75 today (September 14), which is an all-time high for food aggregator business.

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