Zepto’s Aadit Palicha Accuses Rival Start-Up's CFO of 'Smear Campaign' - Here's What's Happening

Zepto CEO Aadit Palicha has alleged that a rival firm's chief financial officer (CFO) is running a smear campaign against the IPO-bound quick commerce platform. He did not take name of the competitor while sharing a post regarding the same on LinkedIn. “This episode is below the stature expected of the CFO of a high-quality company,” he wrote.

In the post, Palicha claimed that the CFO called its investors to make “wild allegations about Zepto with no empirical evidence, giving out false numbers or excel sheets on the company through sources known to journalists and paying bots on social media to spread a negative narrative”.

He further chose to respond to such information in case any social media posts go out with “inaccurate information”. Palicha shared some performance indicators aimed at underscoring its financial health and growth momentum.

Zepto’s Growth Indicators

“Zepto has grown from approximately 750 crores of GOV per month in May 2024 to 2,400 crores of GOV per month in May 2025. Out EBITDA has improved by 20 absolute percentage points (2,000 basis points) from January 2025 to May 2025, and is approaching single-digit territory. Our cash burn is down approximately 65% over that same period. At the same time, even as our EBITDA improved sharply from January 2025 to May 2025, we have still grown roughly 20% in GOV in that period. That represents an average 4% to 5% month-on-month growth,” Palicha said.

He also explained Zepto’s definition of GOV, which includes the selling price of fruits and vegetables and advertising revenue.

The company also expects to have the vast majority of dark stores fully EBITDA positive (including backend supply chain costs, customer support, last mile and all fixed/variable dark store costs) by next quarter. In addition, Zepto added that the company’s overall EBITDA and operating cash flow is expected to be within a few hundred basis points of breakeven in this same period.

As of the beginning of this quarter, Zepto has approximately 7,445 crores of net cash in the bank (fully reconciled to bank statements). With its current cash burn trajectory, Palicha said Zepto has many years of runway.

“We have an excellent finance and controllership team with best-in-class H2H payment practices, vendor reconciliations, asset verification activities, internal audit systems and a rigorous Big 4 statutory audit record and Financial Due Diligence record with no material qualifications or variations. We are not planning a large-scale rationalisation of stores. On the contrary, we are ramping up store launches,” he added.

Zepto’s Close Competitors

Zepto faces stiff competition from Blinkit, owned by Eternal (formerly Zomato), and Swiggy Instamart in the fast-paced quick commerce segment. Beyond these core rivals, the broader landscape also includes players like Flipkart Minutes and Tata’s BigBasket.

Although competition in quick commerce, it's not common for the CEO of a new-age company to openly criticise competitors. Interestingly, this marks the second instance where Zepto has been at the center of such a public exchange.

Eternal CEO Deepinder Goyal had earlier said the quick commerce industry was burning Rs 5,000 crore per quarter. Of this, Zepto accounted for “substantially more than half” of that amount, he said. The Economic Times had earlier reported that he top three players in the space — Blinkit, Instamart, and Zepto — were collectively incurring monthly losses of Rs 1,300–1,500 crore, with Zepto contributing the most to that figure.