Zepto: wrong hires and SVB nearly killed us — then we rebuilt hiring (interview)
CEO Aadit Palicha says bad early hires and the Silicon Valley Bank freeze brought Zepto to the brink; the fix was hiring for execution excellence.
What was changed
Reflecting on Zepto's early years, co-founder and CEO Aadit Palicha said the quick-commerce company nearly collapsed during the 2022–23 funding crunch. 'The biggest mistakes I made were wrong hires,' he said, pointing to early failures across finance, operations, marketing and category management as critical pressure points. 'We almost died,' he said in a conversation with Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan.
The shocks stacked up. When Silicon Valley Bank folded in March 2023, Zepto had operational funds stuck in the bank — like many Y Combinator-backed startups. A WhatsApp poll reported by the Economic Times found at least 40 Indian YC-backed startups had between $250,000 and $1 million in SVB, and more than 20 had deposits exceeding $1 million, leaving them dangerously exposed.
Palicha said the hard lessons fundamentally reshaped Zepto's approach to hiring: 'The most fundamental input to our company is execution excellence, and the biggest driver of that is high-quality people.' By April 2025 the Economic Times reported Zepto's annualised gross order value nearing $4 billion — a 300% year-on-year surge — with FY24 operating revenue of ₹4,454 crore, up 120% over the previous year.
Why it worked
Early-stage hiring mistakes are compounding debt: Palicha says wrong hires in finance, operations, marketing and category management became the company's biggest vulnerability under funding stress.
Concentration risk in one bank turned a US banking failure into an existential threat for a Mumbai startup with operational funds in SVB.
Palicha's diagnosis tied execution quality directly to people quality, making hiring the control point rather than process or pricing fixes.
The recovery numbers came from the quick-commerce boom — Palicha's claim is that execution-focused hiring is what let Zepto capture it after nearly dying.
What can be applied
A startup's scariest fragility is often its own org chart: wrong early hires compound under stress, and a near-death shock is the moment to rebuild the team around execution.
Aftermath
As of the 2025-04-18 Economic Times report, Zepto's annualised GOV was nearing $4 billion (up 300% year on year) and FY24 operating revenue stood at ₹4,454 crore (up 120%); Palicha said Zepto now builds teams around 'execution intelligence', and credited Y Combinator with playing a crucial role in the company's early growth.