Phani Kishan to Take Over Swiggy Instamart Head as Karthik Gurumurthy Steps Down
- ByStartupStory | March 31, 2023
Swiggy’s quick commerce business Instamart will see a change in leadership as Karthik Gurumurthy steps down from his position as head by the end of April. According to sources, Swiggy cofounder Phani Kishan Addepalli will be taking over the role as head of Instamart. Instamart is Swiggy’s largest business unit after food delivery, and functions as a platform for restaurant aggregation.
According to sources, Karthik Gurumurthy, the head of Swiggy’s quick commerce business Instamart, is expected to step down from his current role by the end of April and take a sabbatical before joining a new role within Swiggy. Gurumurthy, an IIM-Bangalore graduate, has had previous experience as the head of sales at Cipla and has worked at Mondelez International as well as having been a consultant at AT Kearney.
Swiggy CEO Sriharsha Majety has informed senior leaders of the company about the change in leadership at Instamart. Karthik Gurumurthy, the current head of Swiggy’s quick commerce business Instamart, will soon step aside from his position and is expected to lead a new business in the wider ecommerce sector of Swiggy. The new business is referred to as Instamart Max within the company. On the other hand, Phani Kishan Addepalli, who has been with Swiggy since 2015 and was the CEO of the company’s milk and grocery delivery service Supr Daily, will take over as the head of Instamart. According to a report by ET, Instamart Max was being developed with an expanded range of products in January 2022.
Gurumurthy is expected to head a new business within Swiggy called Instamart Max. These changes are happening as Swiggy faces increased competition from Zomato, whose grocery delivery business Blinkit is ahead of Instamart, according to a report from brokerage firm Jefferies. According to reports, in the first half of 2022, Instamart’s gross merchandise value (GMV) reached $257 million, slightly less than Blinkit’s GMV of $270 million, which is owned by Zomato. However, the rapid commerce industry has experienced a slowdown in growth compared to the previous year. Swiggy has laid off 380 employees due to a decrease in its primary food delivery business. In the meantime, Zomato has been regaining its market share through its renewed loyalty program, Zomato Gold, after losing it to Swiggy in the second half of 2022, as noted by HSBC Global Research.
Rohit Kapoor, a former executive of Oyo, is leading Swiggy’s food delivery business as its CEO since August 2022. Swiggy is now focusing on expanding its grocery category, and has transformed the Supr Daily app into a high-end grocery delivery service called Insanely Good. Swiggy’s Insanely Good service delivers fresh, authentic, and delicious groceries to customers’ doorsteps, including locally sourced and regional products, the company stated. The service is currently being tested in Bangalore through a pilot program. According to an earlier source, Addepalli will likely remain in charge of Insanely Good.
Swiggy’s platform lists premium products, which may either be imported or locally produced. Some of the products available include Cherry Cola by Coca-Cola, which is sold in markets like the United States; Kombucha made by Bengaluru-based startups, and Methi Khakhra from Gujarat, all of which can be delivered the next day. Although Swiggy has a separate interface for its premium grocery delivery service, Insanely Good, the company reportedly uses the same technology and backend operations to procure goods for all its grocery businesses, according to an anonymous source. This development is happening at a time when the quick commerce industry is experiencing a slowdown in terms of adding new users, likely due to a challenging funding environment.
The tightening macroeconomic environment has led investors to avoid investing in high-cash burn businesses, which may have contributed to the slowdown in quick commerce industry growth. Although new user acquisition drove gross merchandise value (GMV) growth in 2021 and early 2022, quick commerce companies are now focusing on increasing product sales to existing customers.
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