INDIA – Zomato, an Indian online food delivery platform, has named Akriti Chopra as the company’s new chief financial officer (CFO).
Chopra’s appointment follows the resignation of the Sameer Maheshwary in December last year, having spent less than six months in his tenure.
Followings Sameer’s departure, Zomato’s chief operating officer, Gaurav Gupta, who also holds a co-founder tag at the company, took over the finance functions.
According to a report by paper.vc, the Gurugram-headquartered company Chopra’s appointment was approved by the Zomato board at a meeting held on November 8.
The 32-year-old Chartered Accountant, who is also a Commerce graduate from Lady Sri Ram College, has been with the company for close to eight years.
“Akriti has been building our finance and legal teams for more than 8 years now. Her analytical bent of mind, high level of ownership and moral authority make her a great fit for a CFO role at Zomato,” Deepinder Goyal, chief executive of Zomato said.
The company ended financial year 2017-18 with a 40% growth in revenue to US$65 million. It also cut its annual loss by almost 73%, to US$14.76 million from a loss of US$54.43 million in the year before.
In the first six months of the current financial year, Zomato said its revenue grew by 225% to US$205 million while managing to reduce its burn rate by about 40%, compared to the same period last year.
Zomato says that it clocked 214 million orders worth US$821 million during the period ending in September 2019, translating to an average monthly 36 million online orders during the period.
Ant Financial backed company is also in the process of raising between US$500 million to US$600 million in a fresh funding round to fuel its food delivery and dining out operations.
The funding round will value Zomato at over US$3 billion, and a potential share-swap may also happen using that benchmark.
To further strengthen its position in Inda, Zomato is said to have entered negotiations with UberEats seeking to acquire its online food delivery business in India, in a deal valued at about US$500 million.
The company has also appointed Durga Raghunath, formerly with Indian Express Digital Media, as senior vice president-Growth.
She will manage Zomato’s upcoming food events division, its video content business, SneakPeek, and ad innovations, as well as help with monetisation initiatives.
Founded in 2008, the foodtech unicorn has over the years diversified itself from restaurant search company to food delivery company, and currently, the company has presence in 24 countries serving 10,000 cities globally.
