Founder Exits: Startup Cofounders & CEOs That Quit In 2025

Whether it was geopolitical uncertainty or domestic regulatory norms, 2025 has been the year of change. From startups under legal scrutiny to AI-driven layoffs, the Indian startup ecosystem surely bid adieu in huge numbers this year.  But leadership changes, especially cofounders and CEOs exiting, never follow the norm.

The exit of cofounders or CEOs from a startup signals a change of guard and vision. In 2025, several startups found themselves in this position, and while some founders quit their jobs because their startups shut down, others kickstarted new ventures. 

3one4 Capital founder Pranav Pai felt that founders also need a fresh start at times. 

“I think the primary reason is burnout. Building a startup is very intense. And especially companies where there is a solo founder. So if they’ve taken the company to a point where they are not able to keep up or they are feeling out of sync with the scale of this company, investors do not interfere much in that case,” he told Inc42. 

One major factor was change in the overall strategy for the company, especially with many companies having to adjust to the new reality in the market. The pressure to deliver profitability and increasing focus on AI, has led to a major strategy shift, resulting in top deck shuffles. 

“In most of such cases (strategic shift), it is the board that has decided that the company should move in a different direction. And they initiate the founder transition,” Pai added.

While several top level executives in the ecosystem left the companies all together, others continued to serve at different positions. For instance, EaseMyTrip founder Nishant Pitti resigned from the position of CEO, but continued to serve the company’s board as the chairman and managing director. 

On the other hand, some founders decided to start new ventures. The most prominent example of this are the three PharmEasy founders, Dharmil Sheth, Dhaval Shah and Hardik Dedhia.

This year also witnessed growing interest for secondary deals. As per Inc42 data, nearly 41% of India investors prefer secondary deals as a route to exit their portfolio companies. 

As late-stage secondaries and select exits returned, some founders could finally de-risk and cash out, making it easier to step aside or pursue new ventures. 

We have compiled a list of all significant founder and CEO exits in the Indian startup ecosystem in 2025, supported by various strategic, financial, and personal factors.

Allen Digital’s CEO Abha Maheshwari Stepped Down After Two-Year Stint

Maheshwari served as the CEO at Allen Digital for two years before resigning from her position in August 2025. Without disclosing her future plans, Maheshwari said she will take a pause before joining her next assignment. 

“After two unforgettable years, I’m moving on from ALLEN, closing an incredible chapter filled with learning, growth and impact,” the former Meta executive’s LinkedIn post read. 

Maheshwari joined ALLEN in 2023 after a decade at Meta, where she led product and payments and held key leadership roles across Facebook and Instagram. Over her 20-year career, she has also worked with Cadence Design Systems and Magma Design Automation.

Clensta Cofounder Ashish Mishra Resigned Amid Cash Crunch

D2C skincare brand Clensta was failing to raise funds or sustain on its own when its cofounder and chief business officer (CBO) Ashish Mishra stepped down from his position. While he communicated about his resignation last year in 2024, the formal confirmation came in January 2025. 

Mishra, who formerly worked as the senior vice president at Honasa, joined Clensta as the cofounder and CBO in 2023. He was responsible for transitioning the Parineeti Chopra-backed company by retail-first strategy. 

At the time of his resignation, Mishra said that he will be launching a separate venture in the beauty and personal care space in partnership with other HNIs and founders.

Clensta was later acquired by Florida Beauty labs, which is also the parent of  hair care brand Keywest and skincare brand Co.Co. Walk. This acquisition also resulted in its founder, Puneet Gupta stepping down. 

DriveU Cofounder Ashok Shastry Stepped Down Due To Personal Reasons 

Shastry stepped down from his day-to-day role at the on-demand driver aggregator startup DriveU citing some undisclosed personal reasons. 

While he quit the company as the cofounder, Shastry continues to be on DriveU’s board. 

Shastry founded the startup in 2015 with his father, Ramprasad Shastry, building it as a one-stop platform for hiring drivers and chauffeurs by the hour. Now a decade old, the company says it has facilitated more than 5 million rides for over 6.5 lakh customers since launch.

During his resignation, Shastry said, “I’m proud of what we’ve built— a thriving platform, a stellar team, two consecutive EBITDA-positive years, and a strong culture that has enabled us to weather some of the most challenging moments, including the pandemic.”

Kabeer Biswas Ends Dunzo Chapter

Following the footsteps of his fellow former cofounders, Biswas also left Dunzo in the first month of this year. 

Reliance-backed troubled startup was once the flag bearer of hyperlocal deliveries till the emergence of quick commerce as a category. When Biswas left the company, he was dealing with legal challenges from vendors and employees due to unpaid salaries and dues. 

Months after joining Flipkart Minutes, Biswas is now also ready to move on from the quick commerce venture. Kunal Gupta, who is currently serving as the vice president of Flipkart, will take over Biswas’ role at Flipkart Minutes.

Sources told Inc42 that at one point lead investor Reliance had offered to acquire Dunzo, but CEO Biswas was not willing to exit at that point. Instead he only stepped down after the company had to shut shop. 

EaseMyTrip CEO Nishant Pitti Eyes New Role 

Listed travel tech giant witnessed top deck shuffle this year with Nishant Pitti resigning from the position of the chief executive officer (CEO). While the exact reason for this resignation was not disclosed, there have been rumours about his involvement in the money laundering Mahadev betting case. 

However, EaseMyTrip refuted the allegations and said that Pitti has had no involvement, direct or indirect, with any illegal betting operations or entities related to the Mahadev app.

Nishant Pitti has been dissolving his ownership in the company by giving up his stake in 2024. On December 31, he sold 4,99,52,163 shares at INR 15.68 apiece, with the deal amounting to INR 78.3 Cr. Prior to this, he also offloaded 24.7 Cr shares of the startup in September 2024.

Recently, Nishant pledged 9 Cr shares worth INR 94.5 Cr to Motilal Oswal Financial Services for  “personal use”.

Eduvanz Cofounder Raheel Shah Stepped Down 

Raheel Shah, the cofounder and chief business officer at edtech-focussed non-banking financial company (NBFC) Eduvanz, stepped down from his position amid restructuring exercise at the company. 

Talking to Inc42, sources said that Shah is likely to launch his own incubator to mentor startups.

The company witnesses some other undisclosed leadership exits as well. It also raised a bridge round of $2.9 Mn, co-led by its existing investors Juvo Ventures and Capria Fund in February this year. 

Exotel’s Ishwar Sridharan Begins New Innings 

Exotel, an AI-based customer engagement platform, saw multiple leadership exits this year, including its cofounder and chief operating officer Ishwar Sridharan stepping down from his position in September

During the resignation, Sridharan did not disclose the rationale behind this move. However, his LinkedIn handle currently reads “On a break”. 

Incidentally, Exotel’s senior directors as well as India head Angira Agrawal also quit this year, along with VP of HR Sumanpreet Bhatia.

End Of The Girish Mathrubootham Era At Freshworks 

Girish Mathrubootham, the cofounder of Nasdaq-listed SaaS major Freshworks, announced his departure from the company in September this year. Mathrubootham will resign from the role of executive chairman and chairman of its board, effective December 1. 

He took this decision to devote more time towards Together Fund, the venture capital firm he cofounded with Manav Garg and Shubham Gupta.

Notably, Mathrubootham incorporated Freshworks with his cofounder Shanmugam Krishnasamy, who also left the company in 2022. After its public listing, Freshworks went through technological evolution with focus on AI and witnessed a major reshuffle at the top level. 

In 2024, Freshworks also saw a complete revamp of its top management, including CTO, CPO, chief revenue officer, and its India head.

GlobalBees CEO Nitin Agarwal Resigned Due To Personal Reasons

Nitin Agarwal, the cofounder and CEO of FirstCry’s ecommerce subsidiary GlobalBees, resigned from his position citing personal reasons. 

On the other hand, sources told Inc42 that Agarwal exited the company due to health reasons. Company’s former chief business officer Anuj Jain took over charge as CEO of GlobalBees in April.  He has also been designated as a senior management personnel (SMP) at the listed entity.

Agarwal started GlobalBees, along with FirstCry cofounder and CEO Supam Maheshwari in April 2021 and grew the company to a unicorn valuation in December that year.

In February, GlobalBees senior vice president Mohit Saxena also stepped down from his position. 

Good Glamm Group Crashes; CEO Darpan Sanghvi Steps Away 

House of brands Good Glamm Group, which owned MyGlamm, Moms Co, Organic Harvest, and St. Botanica, crumbled when its investors took over the charge to sell the brands owned by the company and repay the debt.

In July, group’s founder Darpan Sanghvi announced the development and said that this was the last resort left for the startup. Sanghvi took responsibility for the downfall and stepped down from his position. The company is currently under insolvency proceedings. 

In September, he incorporated a new venture called CoFounder Circle, an acceleration platform for startups and small businesses.

Haptik Cofounder Aakrit Vaish Hands Over The CEO Baton

Reliance-owned conversational AI platform Haptik cofounder and CEO Aakrit Vaish resigned from his position and handed over the reins to long time Haptikan Ahshad Jussawalla in February. 

“Last year, after more than a decade of building Haptik, I stepped down as CEO and handed over the reins to long-time Haptikan Ahshad Jussawalla,” Vaish said at the time of his exit.

Vaish, along with his cofounder Swapan Rajdev, founded Haptik in 2013. Later, in 2019, the company was acquired by Reliance in an INR 200 Cr deal. After his resignation, Vaish continues to serve on the board of the company. 

As per his Linkedin, Vaish is currently working on a product associated with SaaS-based marketing. 

Hero MotoCorp CEO Niranjan Gupta Begins HUL Innings

In February, Hero MotoCorp announced that its CEO Niranjan Gupta had put down papers and would leave the company on April 30 to pursue new opportunities. Gupta’s role was taken over by company’s executive director of operations, Vikram Kasbekar. 

Later in September, Gupta joined FMCG conglomerate Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) as the chief financial officer and executive director. 

It is pertinent to note that Gupta holds finance as his expertise. He joined Hero MotoCorp as the CFO and served at that position for six years before taking up the CEO position. 

Angad Bhatia Ends Journey As MensXP Founder

Angad Bhatia stepped down from his position as the founder at India Lifestyle Network (ILN), the parent entity of MensXP, iDiva, and Hypp in February. 

Bhatia later joined Network18 as the CEO for news media platforms Firstport and Creator18. On the contrary, sources earlier said that Bhatia had plans to set up a creator-focussed alternative investment fund (AIF). 

Furthermore, the sources told Inc42 that responsibilities of Bhatia would be delegated to other members in the ILN team. 

It is pertinent to note that Mensa Brands acquired ILN in 2022. 

Navi’s Sachin Bansal Passes The Torch 

Fintech giant Navi faced a major restructuring exercise in February, as a part of which Sachin Bansal stepped down from the position of CEO from Navi Technologies and Navi Finserv. 

However, he continues to serve as the executive chairman at the Navi Group.

As per the company this would allow Bansal to focus on Navi’s long-term strategies, exploring expansion opportunities, steering fund-raising and M&A efforts and enhancing compliance and risk management across the group.

On the other hand, the company elevated its legal head Rajiv Naresh as the CEO of Navi Technologies and its business operation head Abhishek Dwivedi as the CEO of Navi Finserv.

PharmEasy Sees Cofounder Exodus 

The online PharmEasy company witnessed a leadership crash when four of its cofounders — Dharmil Sheth, Dhaval Shah, Hardik Dedhia and Harsh Parekh, stepped down from their executive roles in January. 

While Seth, Shah and Dedhia decided to start a new venture together, Parekh’s future plans were unclear. Back then, the fifth cofounder Siddharth Shah took over the role of managing director and chief executive officer. 

Back then, Siddharth told Inc42 that the four cofounders would not participate in the day-to-day operation of the company but continued to serve as the board members. 

While these exits were already making headlines this year, Siddharth also stepped down from his role as the CEO in August. He assumed the roles of director and vice chairman at PharmEasy’s parent entity, API Holdings.

Meanwhile, Thyrocare’s managing director and chief executive Rahul Guha will succeed Shah as PharmEasy CEO. 

SwiffyLabs Cofounder Lizzie Chapman Quit Within A Year Of Launch

Lizzie Chapman, the cofounder of Jio Platforms-backed SwiffyLabs, exited the fintech startup in less than a year after its official launch. Back in February, the spokesperson of the company told Inc42 that Chapman would continue to serve the company in an advisory capacity.

Notably, Chapman started the company in April 2024 in partnership with Ashish Anantharaman. 

This was their second stint together. In 2015, both of them cofounded lending platform ZestMoney. However, they left the company in 2023, followed by DMI acquiring the company in a distress sale. 

Tata Digital CEO Naveen Tahilyani Amid Business Slowdown 

Naveen Tahilyani stepped down from the role of CEO and MD of Tata Digital in May within one year of taking up the position. He joined UK-based Prudential Plc as regional CEO for India, Africa, and Southeast Asia, to lead its health business. 

Tahilyani exited Tata Digital at a time when the company was struggling to scale its super app Tata Neu. 

Back at that time, there were reports claiming that Tata Digital CFO Hadreep Singh Guru could take up Tahilyani’s position. However, Tata Group’s digital arm onboarded former Jio Digital Services head Sajith Sivanandan as the new CEO and MD in September 2025, his linkedIn handle reflects. 

Zoho’s Sridhar Vembu Takes Up Chief Scientist Role

Ending the three decade streak, Vembu stepped down from the position of group CEO at Zoho. Earlier this year, Vembu said that he will be taking up the role of Chief Scientist and will be responsible for deep R&D initiatives at the company.

While resigning, Vembu said that he is focussing on finetuning Zoho’s AI vision. In fact, he has been increasingly vocal about India needing sovereign AI and tech to secure its economy and people. 

Zoho’s cofounder and ManageEngine VP Shailesh Davey succeeded Vembu and took up the CEO role.