BENGALURU: Quick commerce start-up Zepto CEO Aadit Palicha on Tuesday refuted Zomato founder Deepinder Goyal's comment on quick commerce cash burn statement as 'verifiably untrue'.
Goyal in an interview, had said that the quick commerce sector is burning Rs 5,000 crore in cash each quarter and that Zomato-owned Blinkit accounts for 2-3% of the amount and that more than half of this is by Zepto.
Strongly refuting this claim, Palicha in a post on LinkedIn said that Goyal had made an inaccurate statement about Zepto.
"His words were that Quick Commerce was burning 5,000 Crores per quarter of which 'substantially more than half of this is by Zepto' - implying that we are losing substantially more than 2,500 Crores per quarter. This statement is verifiably untrue and it will be clear when we publicly file our financial statements," he said.
He further added that Goyal started Zomato when he was 5 years old and that he has become a role model for the Indian start-up ecosystem. "I have personally read all of his blogs and it's a privilege to learn from and compete with Zomato. Our genuine intention is to build the Indian startup ecosystem together in good-faith, and build a world-class product for the Indian consumer," he added.
Goyal had stated that Zepto burned Rs 2,200-2,300 crore last quarter. Zepto, which is aiming for an IPO this year, secured USD 1.355 billion across three USD 300 million rounds in the past year.
According to a recent report, Blinkit leads the quick commerce market with a 46% share, followed by Zepto at 29%.
Indus Valley Annual Report 2025 by Blume Ventures says quick commerce players are aggressively expanding dark store network and geographical presence, with Blinkit leading both metrics.
It says Zepto is hitting store break even faster, as a 2022 store took 23 months to turn EBITDA-positive with Rs 4 crore spent on capex, while a 2024 store turned EBITDA-positive in eight months with Rs 1.5 crore in capex.
Zomato reported a 57% decline in its consolidated net profit for the third quarter ended December 2024 to Rs 59 crore compared to Rs 138 crore in the year-ago period. Its Blinkit store count crossed the 1,000 store mark, and it aims to get to 2,000 stores by December 2025. Its quick commerce GOV(gross order value) grew 120% YoY.
“The losses in our quick commerce business this quarter are largely on account of pulling forward the growth investments in the business that we would have otherwise made in a staggered manner over the next few quarters. As of now, it seems like we will get to our target of 2,000 stores by December 2025, much earlier than our previous guidance of Dec 2026," Deepinder Goyal, Founder & CEO, Zomato, had said.