Dunzo goes offline as investors, co-founder depart
The website and app shutdown comes weeks after Dunzo’s co-founder and CEO Kabeer Biswas handed in his resignation to join Flipkart.
Hyperlocal delivery service Dunzo’s app and website have gone offline days after news broke that its co-founder and CEO Kabeer Biswas has joined Flipkart to work on its quick commerce offering.
According to a report by Inc42, all of the company’s employees have left as news of pending salaries and investor exits cloud the startup.
Some of the employees have also filed a complaint against Biswas for their pending salaries, the report added.
There have been multiple reports about the company delaying payments to its vendors and salaries to its employees amid an ongoing funding crunch.
According to an Inc42 report, the company’s major investor Reliance has written off its $200 million investment in the platform. The conglomerate, which holds a 25.8% stake in Dunzo from its investment in 2022, is no longer involved in any discussions regarding additional funding or a distress sale.
Most of the company’s investors, including tech giant Google and venture capital firm Lightbox, have also departed the company’s board of directors leading up to its website and apps shutting down.
According to a Moneycontrol report, the company was in talks with food delivery platform Swiggy and Tata’s BigBasket for a potential buyout, but the talks fell through.
Biswas is also the latest and the last co-founder to step away from the company after Mukund Jha, Dalvir Suri, and Ankur Agarwal.
Founded in 2014, the company last raised $75 million investment a Series F funding round in April 2023. The company subsequently fired a number of employees after the fundraise.
Edited by Jyoti Narayan