Asked about his lowest moment as a founder, Deepinder said at The Economic Times Startup Awards 2024, “The only moment…(we felt) we were dead was when Swiggy raised $1 billion and we had $35 million in the bank. That was bad.”
Goyal was referring to Swiggy’s 2018 funding round, when it had mopped up $1 billion from South African media giant Naspers, China’s Tencent and hedge funds Hillhouse Capital and Wellington Management. Swiggy was valued at $3.3 billion in the round.
He also spoke about the top-deck rejig at Zomato. Goyal said that after the company’s initial public offering (IPO) in 2021, he had to reboot the organisation and clear out executives who had become “complacent.”
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“There was no work happening inside the organisation for a while. I had to literally clear out pretty much everybody who had lost that drive and then reboot the organisation,” he added.
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On his exit from the popular reality show Shark Tank India, Goyal said, “I unfortunately can’t go back because Swiggy sponsored Shark Tank this time and kicked me out… That’s what I heard – that they said this is the sponsorship and Deepinder Goyal can’t be on the show.”Elaborating on the rise of quick commerce, Goyal said that the exponential growth of quick commerce has come as a surprise for all. “I didn’t think it would grow so much,” he added.
On the regulatory scrutiny, the Zomato CEO said that quick commerce is not eating into the market share of kiranas. “Blinkit is not even affecting companies like Dmart. We are more or less eating into the share of ecommerce players like Amazon and Flipkart, as well as modern retail,” he added.