Swiggy Elevates Phani Kishan As Cofounder

Food delivery platform Swiggy on Monday (July 12) elevated Phani Kishan who used to be vice president of strategy and investments to the position of cofounder in the company. The announcement was made in a blog post by Swiggy’s chief executive officer Sriharsha Majety.

Kishan who will be joining Sriharsha Majety and Nandan Reddy as a cofounder is one of the early employees of Swiggy. He joined the company in March of 2015 as a general manager of strategy, CX and new initiatives.

In the blog, Majety described the elevation move as “an ode to one such Swiggster – someone who’s been one of my biggest sources of energy in this journey.”

Majety called Kishan as his fixer and go-to guy for many important problems. As per Majety, Kishan was a part of the core team that helped shape Swiggy’s values early on, and has leaned on them like religion to drive action and energise everyone he worked with.

“His energy, can-do attitude and founder mentality are all goal-worthy for any Swiggster to succeed here and make a huge impact in the company’s future,” he added.

Kishan will be joining the M-team and will work in shaping Swiggy’s future. The elevation comes soon after Vivek Sunder who was the chief operating officer stepped down from his role. Last year, Swiggy’s cofounder and chief technology officer Rahul Jamini resigned from the company to join Pesto Tech as a cofounder.

Swiggy’s rival and IPO-bound Zomato has also elevated its chief public officer Akriti Chopra as cofounder. Mohit Gupta who earlier was the chief executive officer of the food delivery business was elevated as cofounder last year.

In another major development, Competition Commission of India, the anti-monopoly watchdog on Monday has also approved SoftBank Vision Fund II’s request to invest $450 Mn in Swiggy. This investment comes on the back of an $800 Mn investment in Series J round from Falcon Edge, Think Investments, Goldman Sachs, among others. The startup is at present valued at around $5 Bn.