Zepto appoints Nikhil Mittal as Chief Technology Officer

Mumbai-based grocery delivery firm Zepto has elevated Nikhil Mittal—the first employee in the three-year-old startup—as its Chief Technology Officer (CTO). Mittal, along with Chief Product Officer Ankit Agarwal, will report to co-founder Kaivalya Vohra.

Previously a senior vice president of engineering at Zepto, Mittal will take on the new role effective this month, the company said in a statement on Wednesday.

The quick commerce unicorn is looking to expand its technology workforce meaningfully, especially in the DevOps, quality assurance, cloud, and infrastructure teams, Co-founder and CEO Aadit Palicha told YourStory.

“Our tech team has gone from 0 to 200 in the last two years, and we will continue to make meaningful hires,” Palicha said. Zepto’s tech team accounts for nearly 15% of its total workforce.

The quick commerce company is also doubling down on its technology capabilities by building a warehouse management system, enhanced search engine, and software for last-mile delivery partners, he added.

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Speaking of Mittal’s appointment, Palicha said, “Nikhil has had an incredible run at Zepto. He joined us as our first-ever employee when Kaivalya and I were just crazy teenagers with an idea to deliver groceries in 10 minutes. That journey from all-night coding sprints in Kaivalya’s apartment to being the CTO of one of the fastest-growing tech companies in Indian history has been life-changing for all of us.”

“In an unbelievably short period of time and with frugality, Nikhil has built out a high-performing engineering team from scratch and, more importantly, scaled himself to be an exceptional people leader. He thoroughly deserves this elevation, and I’m looking forward to continuing our work together to build a world-class engineering team,” Kaivalya Vohra, Co-founder of Zepto, noted.

In August last year, Zepto raised $200 million at a valuation of $1.4 billion, making it the first startup to attain unicorn status in 2023. The round was led by StepStone Group and California-based venture capital firm Goodwater Capital, with participation from Nexus Venture Partners, Glade Brook Capital, and Lachy Groom.

(The story was updated to correct a typo.)