Zepto CEO Aadit Palicha Accuses Rival CFO Behind Smear Campaign

Zepto co-founder and CEO Aadit Palicha has accused the CFO of a competing quick commerce company of running a smear campaign against Zepto. 

Without naming anyone, he accused a rival CFO of reaching out to Zepto’s investors with false claims, leaking misleading internal data through the media, and using paid social media bots to harm the company’s reputation.

He claims the campaign is aimed at criticizing Zepto’s growth and its spending strategy.

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"This includes calling our investors to make wild allegations about us with no empirical evidence, giving out false numbers/Excel sheets on Zepto through sources known to journalists, and paying bots on social media to spread a negative narrative," shared Palicha in a LinkedIn post.

Zepto also sees platforms like flipkart Minutes and Tata BigBasket as competitors.

“I'm okay with healthy/aggressive competitive talk, but lies are not acceptable. Frankly, these calls from you are only making it clearer to the investor community that we are a strong competitor,”  Palicha said, concluding his post, appealing for more professionalism among rivals."

Palicha said that Zepto’s monthly Gross Order Value (GOV) grew from ₹750 crore in May 2024 to ₹2,400 crore in May 2025. This includes sales of fruits and vegetables at their selling price, along with advertising revenue.

Palicha also said that Zepto’s EBITDA has improved by 20 percentage points since the start of the year and is close to turning positive. The company has also cut its cash burn by around 65% during this time. From January to May, Zepto’s Gross Order Value (GOV) grew by 20%.

He expects most of Zepto’s dark stores to be EBITDA positive by next quarter and believes the company’s overall EBITDA and operating cash flow will be close to breakeven by the September quarter.

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