Zepto CEO Aadit Palicha Slams Rival Q-Commerce CFO for Alleged Smear Campaign

Aadit Palicha, the CEO and co-founder of Zepto, has openly claimed that the CFO of a rival rapid commerce company is planning a smear campaign against Zepto's leadership, company, and brand. Palicha posted the allegations on 25 May's evening on LinkedIn.

Palicha claimed, without naming the competing CFO or business, that the CFO had been in touch with Zepto's investors to disseminate untrue claims, disseminated fraudulent internal data via media outlets, and even employed paid social media bots to damage the company's reputation.

To be honest, Palicha noted that this experience falls short of what one would expect from a CFO of a reputable corporation. It's clear that they're beginning to feel anxious about how quickly Zepto's EBITDA is becoming better.

Zepto Showcased Exponential Performance Recently

While praising Zepto's recent impressive growth and performance, Palicha pointed out that the company's users are a big reward for its efforts. Additionally, he pointed out that Zepto's monthly GOV increased from INR 750 crore in May 2024 to INR 2,400 crore in May 2025.

Between January and May 2025, the company's EBITA margin increased by 20% and its cash burn decreased by 65%. Zepto maintained about 20% GOV growth during the same period, with 4-5% monthly growth, despite the emphasis on profitability.

Zepto reports having net cash reserves of INR 7,445 crore and anticipates operating cash flow and EBITA to be close to breakeven in the upcoming quarter. Despite rumours to the contrary, Zepto is expanding rather than shrinking its network of dark stores.

At the moment, the company runs around 1,000 dark shopfronts. Palicha highlighted the business's sound financial and auditing procedures, which include Big 4 statutory audits and thorough due diligence that found no serious issues.

In addition to having best-in-class H2H payment procedures, vendor reconciliations, asset verification activities, internal audit systems, and a strict Big 4 statutory audit record and Financial Due Diligence record with no material qualifications or variations, Palicha wrote that Zepro boasts an outstanding finance and controllership team.

Tug of War Between the Quick Commerce Giants

With a current valuation of $5 billion, Zepto has surpassed Swiggy Instamart but lagged behind Blinkit to become the second-largest participant in the rapid commerce space. Competitors, however, have questioned the transparency of the data.

Deepinder Goyal, the CEO of Eternal (previously Zomato), charged earlier this year that the rapid commerce industry as a whole was wasting 5,000 crore every quarter, with Zepto being responsible for "substantially more than half" of that amount.

A contentious discussion concerning the company's financial discipline was triggered by the remark. Sriharsha Majety, the CEO of Swiggy, recently voiced concerns with Zepto's published numbers as well, pointing out that Zepto withholds Net Order Value (NOV), a metric that Swiggy and Eternal have implemented to give a more realistic picture of customer spending.