Ola And Foodpanda Might Be Heading For A Senior Level Rejig: Report

Facing stiff competition in the food delivery segment, Ola and its foodtech vertical, Foodpanda are heading for a major executive reshuffle, with the exit of two senior executives according to a report in Business Standard.

This comes at a time when the US-based Uber, Ola’s biggest rival, is about to go public. Uber mentioned in its IPO prospectus that its food delivery vertical, Uber Eats faces competition from Zomato and Swiggy in India but did not mention Ola’s Foodpanda.

Ola did not respond to Inc42’s query on the matter.

Reportedly, Nimish Joshi who is the head of strategic development at Ola and Pranav Mehta who is a senior director, have expressed their desire to leave Ola.

Nimish Joshi’s exit could particularly hurt Ola, as the M&A expert, who was poached from InMobi, led the acquisition of Ridlr in 2018. Joshi also led Ola’s investment in Vogo and Mumbai based cloud kitchen HolaChef. Pranav Mehta is the de-facto head of Ola’s operations in Delhi-NCR.

Most recently, Ola has seen the departure of 12 mid-level employees in the last two months, sources told Business Standard.

In a recent departure, one of the earliest employees of Ola, who was the head of TaxiForSure business, resigned in January 2019. According to reports, the departures are happening because of Ola’s decision to transfer employees to Foodpanda.

“Part of the exits in the first instance was due to people being transferred from Ola to Foodpanda,” a former employee told Business Standard who quit during the transition.

In February this year Ola had confirmed investment from Flipkart cofounder Sachin Bansal. In a statement, Ola announced that Sachin has led an investment of $92 Mn (INR 650 Cr) in the company.

After Sachin Bansal’s investment, total funding in Ola’s ongoing Series J round has now risen to about $166 Mn.

In 2018 the company launched its operations in Australia, UK, and New Zealand. The company also reportedly set up teams in Dhaka, Bangladesh and Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Ola is also reportedly in discussion with luxury carmakers, including Audi, Mercedes and BMW to offer a subscription model where users can get access to luxury cars by paying a monthly fee. The company has also entered a strategic partnership with South Korean carmaker Hyundai and its affiliate Kia, to develop new and unique mobility solutions including electric vehicles and supporting infrastructure.