Just two-year-old Zepto company becomes first unicorn of 2023 in India

In a toughly competitive e-commerce market with leading players like Swiggy Instamart, Blinkit, Tata’s BB Now and Reliance-backed Dunzo, Zepto as emerged as the first unicorn of 2023 in India.

Mumbai-based Zepto has become a USD 1.4 Billion unicorn with Kaivalya Vohra and Aadit Palicha helming the two-year-old company.

According to reports, Zepto has around 25 percent market share in the q-commerce space.

Kaivalya Vohra and Aadit Palicha are college dropouts of Stanford University in Stanford, California. They were enrolled at this university to study computer science, but dropped out later to start their own company.

Zepto’s co-founders Aadit Palicha and Kaivalya Vohra said in a press meet on August 25 that their company has raised $200 million in Series-E fundraise, valuing the company at Rs 11,567 crore. They became the youngest entrepreneurs to feature in the IIFL Wealth-Hurun India Rich List 2022.

Kaivalya is ranked at 1036 on the Hurun list with a net worth of Rs 1,000 crore, while Aadit Palicha is ranked at 950 with a net worth of Rs 1,200 crore. They were the youngest start-up founders in the Hurun India Future Unicorn Index 2022. The duo were earlier also featured in Forbes magazine's influential "30 under 30 (Asia list)” in the e-commerce category.

The two co-founders are childhood friends who had initially started Kirankart, an online platform that delivered grocery items from local shops in Mumbai, later it was renamed as Zepto.