Blinkit Elevates Rishi Arora As Cofounder

Rishi Arora, who has been heading operations at Blinkit for over eight years, is recently being promoted as the cofounder of the quick commerce platform. 

Arora’s LinkedIn profile confirms this development. Prior to this, he was serving at Blinkit as a senior vice president of operations. It is one of the many developments that have occurred after Zomato acquired Blinkit for $568 Mn (INR 4,447 Cr) in an all-stock deal in late June.

In 2021, Blinkit’s cofounder Saurabh Kumar exited Blinkit only to found another quick commerce platform Warpli that delivers all products, right from grocery to electronics, in 30 minutes.

Besides, Sajal Gupta has also been promoted as CTO of Blinkit, according to an ET report. However, Gupta has not updated his promotion on LinkedIn. As per his LinkedIn profile, he is currently working as an engineering manager with Blinkit since January this year. Prior to this, he was working along with foodtech unicorn Zomato for close to six years. 

After Blinkit became one of the portfolio companies of Zomato, the foodtech giant’s investors showed great discontent and consequently, wrote to the regulatory body Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). 

In the letter, Zomato’s investors complained about losses that they suffered owing to the late disclosure made by the listed foodtech unicorn about Blinkit’s acquisition deal.

Post the announcement of Blinkit’s acquisition, Zomato shares tanked by 5% to INR 57.20 per share on June 29, 2022 on the Indian bourses. During the same time period, Inc42 reported that foodtech giant had lost more than INR 10,250 Cr of its market capitalisation in the matter of three days after the announcement. 

Deepinder Goyal, founder and CEO of Zomato, earlier said that Blinkit is a hyperlocal business that caters to the need for quick delivery of products for customers. 

Meanwhile, equity research companies and their analysts believed that Blinkit’s acquisition would add to the foodtech unicorn’s business in the long run. Nonetheless, investors are still not confident about this as they see Blinkit as a loss-making company adding to Zomato’s portfolio. 

Prior to the acquisition, Blinkit entered the coveted unicorn club in 2021 after Zomato infused INR 740 Cr in exchange for 9.16% equity shares. Following this, the loss-making startup also took a loan of $150 Mn from Zomato in March this year. 

Zomato’s shares closed at INR 53.95 on Friday (15 July) as on BSE. 

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