Zomato’s co-founder Pankaj Chaddah took to twitter to announced his resignation from the company ending a decade of service.
Chaddah will now take a little break but aspires to “move on to something new.”
In a letter posted on the company’s blog intended to his fellow employees, he stated “I have been thinking of moving on for some time now, but I didn’t want to leave when the company really needed me to be around”.
Admitting that the company was going through a bad phase in the last two years, he added, “now that the company is in good shape, I think it’s a good time.”
Indeed, this news comes as a shock for many but his resignation cannot come at a better time. A few days ago, China’s Alibaba Group Holding Ltd invested $150 in the food search and delivery app, valuing the company at more than $1 billion. Alibaba’s payment affiliate, Ant Financial Services Group also bought $50 million worth of shares in secondary purchases. The funds will be used to improve products and technology, especially to rival Softbank-backed Ola which recently acquired FoodPanda India.
This much awaited funding round comes after Zomato had to trim its staff back in 2016 to become once again profitable. They had to stop acquiring smaller-food-tech and online restaurant guides in 2017 as well to cut losses. So far they made 20 acquisitions and are present in over 27 countries.
“After 10 years, I am moving on from Zomato to try out something new. I’ll continue to play an active role till the end of this month. Have been thinking about this for a while, and the timing seems right today as Zomato is back to being a rocket-ship,” he Pankaj Chaddah tweeted.
He also grabbed the opportunity to thank Zomato founder Deepinder Goyal and entrepreneur Sanjeev Bikhchandani for trusting him throughout their association.
He mentioned that he will step down from the company at the end of the month.
An Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi (IIT-D) graduate, Chaddah joined Zomato in March 2008. He also served as a senior analyst and as an associate consultant at Bain & Company before joining Zomato.