Zepto co-founder and CEO Aadit Palicha has publicly called out the chief financial officer of a competing quick commerce firm, accusing him of attempting to tarnish Zepto’s image through backdoor tactics and false narratives. In a strongly worded LinkedIn post, Palicha said the executive in question has been reaching out to investors with misleading information, circulating manipulated financial data, and allegedly using bots to stir negativity on social media.
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“This individual has been cold-calling our investors with baseless accusations, leaking cooked-up spreadsheets to journalists, and trying to fuel a smear campaign online,” Palicha wrote. “Frankly, this kind of behaviour is well below the standards one would expect from a CFO at a company that wants to be taken seriously. It’s clear they’re feeling the heat as Zepto’s numbers start to tell a different story.”
Palicha didn’t just fire back — he backed it up with metrics. According to his post, Zepto’s gross order value (GOV) has seen a massive jump from ₹750 crore in May 2024 to ₹2,400 crore by May 2025. Over the past five months alone, he said the company has not only cut its cash burn by 65 percent but also improved its EBITDA margin by 2,000 basis points.
Despite this push for profitability, growth hasn’t slowed. Palicha noted that between January and May 2025, the company maintained an average monthly GOV growth of 4 to 5 percent.
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Looking ahead, he said most of Zepto’s dark stores are on track to become EBITDA-positive in the upcoming quarter. He also expects the company’s overall EBITDA and operating cash flow to hover just a few hundred basis points away from breakeven.
“Numbers speak louder than noise,” Palicha added — a clear message to critics and competitors alike.
