Nov 24, 2023

Dealshare cofounders Vineet Rao, Sankar Bora exit post rejig SECTIONS By Rate Story Synopsis While Rao “stepped down” from his role of chief executive in July and was supposed to work with the board for hiring a new CEO, he has now left Dealshare even as the company has yet to name his successor, several people aware of the matter said. Bora, who was chief operating officer, has also moved on from the company which is now shifting its non-tech functions to Gurgaon. ETtech Shankar Bora and Vineet Rao, cofounders, Dealshare Vineet Rao and Sankar Bora, two cofounders of ecommerce platform Dealshare, have left the firm which has seen multiple rounds of job cuts and a business restructuring this year, people in the know told ET. While Rao “stepped down” from his role of chief executive in July and was supposed to work with the board for hiring a new CEO, he has now left Dealshare even as the company has yet to name his successor, several people aware of the matter said. Bora, who was chief operating officer, has also moved on from the company which is now shifting its non-tech functions to Gurgaon. Elevate Your Tech Prowess with High-Value Skill Courses Offering College Medda and Shikhar still continue to operate inside the firm along with senior executives like former Big Bazaar chief executive Kamaldeep Singh, who was hired as president of retail business, and Rajesh Purohit, formerly at SPAR Hypermarkets India, who is now senior vice president of retail at Dealshare. While Rao held a 11.7% stake in the firm as of March 2022, Bora owned about 3.2% and Medda had 7.1%, data from Tracxn showed. Shikhar did not own any stake. The departure of two cofounders came at a time when the company has seen a significant change in its operations, following an investor review over its consumer-facing business as well as B2B trading vertical. Dealshare in September had to shut its B2B business following a business review by its investors, and fired 130 employees . The company had cut more than 100 jobs in January. It now has just about 500 employees. ETtech Because of the restructuring, it is expected to clock only half of last year’s total sales, as per current estimates. It is on an annualised gross sales run rate of about $150-200 million, sources said. Similar to Dealshare , Groyyo — another Tiger Global and Alpha Wave-backed startup — is in the process of shutting its B2B vertical after investors mandated auditing firm Deloitte for the same, as reported by ET on October 30 . Before Dealshare, Rao had founded another ecommerce platform named Shopwest and worked at Microsoft prior to that, according to his LinkedIn profile. Bora had previously worked in a senior role at Flipkart-owned Myntra. Of the about 500 employees on its rolls now, 60 employees — mostly engineers — work out of Bengaluru. Another 180-200 work out of Gurgaon, while about 200 are based in Jaipur. The firm had about 1,000 employees at the start of the year. The firm recently gave up the main office space it occupied in the HSR area in Bengaluru, having moved its headquarters to Gurgaon from Bengaluru in September. Experience Your Economic Times Newspaper, The Digital Way! Thursday, 23 Nov, 2023 IndiGo may introduce a premium class of seats along with hot food and a loyalty programme by the end of 2024, as India’s largest airline looks to court more business flyers and rival Air India on international routes, said people with knowledge of the matter.