Zomato loses CFO, acquires drone delivery startup

Zomato Media Pvt. Ltd has lost its chief financial officer (CFO) Sameer Maheshwary five months after he joined the online restaurant discovery and food delivery startup.

A Zomato spokesperson has confirmed the development to TechCircle.

"We confirm that Sameer is moving on from Zomato. He has hired a great finance team, which is very excited about the work they are doing. Gaurav Gupta (chief operating officer at Zomato) will lead the finance team in the interim until we complete the search for a new CFO," said the company spokesperson in an email.

Maheshwary, who previously had a 19-year stint with General Electric (GE), had joined Zomato in July this year.

“My short time at Zomato has been extremely memorable and fulfilling. The growth has been exhilarating – Zomato has already grown two times within the last six months,” Maheshwary said in a statement. He said he will pursue different personal and professional interests.

The Economic Times was the first to report on his exit.

Maheshwary had been with GE since 1999 and has held various finance and business roles in the US, Japan and India. He was also the co-chief executive of SBI Card, a joint venture between State Bank of India and GE Capital.

Before that, he was a senior vice-president at GE Capital India, where he worked on business development and was the business leader for automobile leasing and commercial distribution finance.

Deepinder Goyal, co-founder and chief executive of Zomato, said in the statement, “In a short period of time, Sameer (Maheshwary) has been transformative for Zomato, has built a great team, and a lot of long-term capabilities into the system.”

Acquisitions

Zomato said on Wednesday it has acquired TechEagle Innovations Pvt. Ltd, a Lucknow-based startup that works on drones. The acquisition will help the Gurugram-based company to deliver food using drones and will create a hub-to-hub delivery network powered by the machines. TechEagle was founded in 2015 by Vikram Singh Meena, when he was a student at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.

In September, VCCircle reported that Zomato has acquired Bengaluru-based TongueStun, an online startup which aggregates caterers for offices and events.

In September last year, Zomato acquired on-demand logistics and food delivery startup Runnr.

Changes in management

Meanwhile, Zomato has seen a number of changes in its senior management this year.

On Tuesday, TechCircle reported that Zomato appointed Durga Raghunath, currently chief executive officer at Indian Express Digital Media Services, as senior vice-president of growth. Raghunath will join Zomato on 21 December 2018, the company said in a statement.

In July, it appointed Mohit Gupta as the chief executive officer of its food delivery business. In June, Mukund Kulashekaran quit as the chief business officer after a three-year stint. Co-founder Pankaj Chaddah left in March after a decade. In January, the company named global advertising sales head Gaurav Gupta as its chief operating officer to replace Chaddah.

Zomato was founded in 2008 by Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi graduates Goyal and Chaddah, who were both executives at management consultancy firm Bain & Company.