Rejig At Udaan: Merges Essentials & Discretionary Businesses, CTO Resigns

Amid mounting losses, B2B ecommerce unicorn Udaan has carried out a significant restructuring exercise in its teams and business units.

As part of this restructuring, the startup will be merging the Essentials business, comprising FMCG, staples, and pharma categories, with the Discretionary business, which includes general merchandise, lifestyle, and electronics categories.

As part of this merger of the two divisions, Vivek Gupta, who led the Essentials business, will transition from the role but will continue to be an advisor to Udaan’s board, the startup said in a statement.

As per Gupta’s LinkedIn profile, he has worked as the chief business officer of Udaan’s Essentials business for over three years now.

Meanwhile, Uday Bhaskar, who currently heads the Discretionary business division, will now lead the unified business unit.

“The integration of these two businesses units serves the twin objectives of ‘synergy in operations’ and building ‘excellence in commercial capabilities’,” Udaan said. 

As part of the rejig, Udaan CTO Gaurav Bhalotia will leave the startup.

Among other changes, Siddharth Reddy will now lead the engineering division and Abhilash Pillai will lead product management for the customer platform for Udaan. Both Pillai and Reddy will report to Udaan’s cofounder and CEO Vaibhav Gupta and also join the executive management team.

Speaking about the restructuring, Gupta said, “Over the last two years, we have made significant strides in building a strong business with sharp focus on customer centricity, cost leadership and building long-term capabilities with the sole objective of driving sustainable growth.”

He also said that led by Udaan’s executive leadership team, the company has witnessed a “steady and durable quarter-over-quarter progress” in key performance indicators across all business verticals.

“As we move forward in our journey, we are taking various steps to further optimise synergies across businesses to be able to offer better value to our customers, which is key to leveraging the huge $100 Bn eB2B opportunity that Bharat offers,” he added.

Founded in 2016 by Gupta, Sujeet Kumar, and Amod Malviya, Udaan enables supply chain and logistics operations focused on B2B trade. It claims to enable daily delivery across over 1,000 cities and 12,500 pin codes through udaanExpress.

Udaan’s Executive Management team will now comprise Gupta, group CFO Aditya Pande, group chief human resources officer Meenakshi Priyam, head of Essentials & Discretionary Business, Bhaskar; and others.

The rejig comes on the heels of Udaan appointing Nillambaran Ganenthiran as the newest board member of its parent company Trustroot Internet. Ganenthiran will reportedly represent  Lightspeed Ventures on the board.

Udaan, which is backed by the likes of Lightspeed, Microsoft, and Tencent, has raised close to $1.8 Bn in total funding so far. The startup fired 350 full-time employees in a second round of layoff exercise last year, soon after its $120 Mn debt round, in its bid to turn profitable.

In FY22, Udaan’s net loss widened 1.2X year-on-year (YoY) to INR 3,075.80 Cr on operating revenue of INR 9,943.8 Cr, which jumped 1.7X.

With profitability now becoming the key focus, the Indian startup ecosystem is witnessing not just an increasing number of layoffs but also more business rejigs and management-level exits.

Recently, Porter restructured its leadership team and cofounder Uttam Digga assumed the role of CEO. Ahead of its impending IPO, OYO also reshuffled its top management team.