Dunzo Cofounder Dalvir Suri To Exit Financially Stressed Startup

Amid ongoing troubles in Bengaluru-based hyperlocal delivery startup Dunzo, one of its cofounders, Dalvir Suri, is exiting the company.

In an email dated October 1st, CEO Kabeer Biswas informed the employees about Suri’s departure. 

Suri’s departure comes at a time when Dunzo is under fire for several reasons, including — delayed employee salaries and fundraising troubles. 

Suri had joined Dunzo as a cofounder six years back and was closely involved in the company’s B2B delivery arm, Dunzo Merchant Services (DMS) –  a vertical that emerged as the company’s core business driver.

Besides, Suri coordinated with key clients such as Reliance JioMart, which is owned by Dunzo’s largest shareholder, Reliance Retail.

Founded in 2014, Dunzo has four cofounders including Biswas, Suri, Mukund Jha and Ankur Agarwal. Interestingly, out of the four, Biswas is the only cofounder who holds equity in the company, while the others receive a fixed salary.

Suri had reportedly planned to exit earlier but he stayed on due to the various crisis that engulfed the company over the past few months, an ET report said. 

“Suri and Mukund Jha were doing most of the staff-related conversations over the past couple of months — whether it was job cuts or operating issues. Biswas was fully focused on fundraising,” a source was further quoted as saying by the publication.

In a statement to Inc42, Biswas said, “Dalvir has been instrumental in building out every new line of business at Dunzo. He has been the key zero to one person from the founding team that gets things Dun. He has been meaning to take a break for sometime now – and with 6+ years spent building Dunzo, he plans to move forward to pursuing new journeys. Everyone who has ever been at Dunzo, has been touched by Dalvir’s ‘Let’s do it’ attitude. We will miss him at Dunzo. We are making some org-wide changes in restructuring our business starting this quarter, and the DMS business has very capable leadership that’s picking up directly after him.”

We must note that Inc42 exclusively reported in August that cash-strapped Dunzo was in advanced talks to raise $100 Mn in its Series G funding round from its existing investors including Lightbox and Lightrock. However, the disagreement over valuation has halted its plans. The company is now trying to secure $35 Mn – $40 Mn to keep the business afloat. 

Due to a severe cash crunch, Dunzo has delayed salary payments to its employees for months now. It has also laid off employees in multiple rounds. The beleaguered startup might make another round of layoffs, CEO Biswas has recently warned. 

Dunzo reported a 2X rise in its net loss to INR 464 Cr in FY22, while its operating revenue grew 2.1X to INR 54.3 Cr that year.

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Update | 2nd October, 10:30 IST

Story updated to include Dunzo’s statment.