Exited personal investment in Shiprocket to avoid conflict of interest: Zomato’s Deepinder Goyal

Deepinder Goyal, CEO and Co-founder of Zomato said he exited his personal investment in e-commerce shipping platform Shiprocket before the food delivery firm led a growth round of funding into the company.

Deepinder Goyal, CEO and Co-founder of Zomato said he exited his personal investment in e-commerce shipping platform Shiprocket before the food delivery firm led a growth round of funding into the company.

Goyal said he exited his $100,000 investment in Shipcrocket at zero profit or loss before Zomato co-led a $185 million (Rs 1,380 crore) Series E funding round in the company, along with Temasek and Lightrock India.

He was answering to a tweet from former Infosys Chief Financial Officer T V Mohandas Pai who questioned the conflict of interest of Zomato’s investment in the shipping start-up in which Goyal was an investor. Tagging Sanjeev Bikhchandani, founder and vice-chairman of Zomato’s largest shareholder Info Edge, Pai tweeted, “Shiprocket to raise $185 million in Series E round co-led by Zomato, Temasek. Is there a conflict of interest if a listed co invests in a startup where the founder of listed co had invested?”

“Btw, this personal investment was one of the key reasons we got closer to Shiprocket (and its founders). That's how we discovered that there's a potential long term strategic fit between the two companies,” Goyal wrote on the microblogging website.

He said the company may do more such deals where Zomato would follow founder’s personal investments to back a company.

New investors, Moore Strategic Ventures and 9unicorns are also participating in this round, along with existing investors Info Edge Ventures and March Capital. Other notable investors in this round include Brijesh Agrawal (IndiaMART), Peyush Bansal (Lenskart), Sanil Sachar (Huddle Ventures), Varun Alagh (Mamaearth), Sameer Mehta & Aman Gupta (Boat Electronics) and Ashish Gupta (Helion Ventures).

Shiprocket will deploy the freshly infused capital towards aggressive core product expansion, research & development, talent acquisition, and development of a comprehensive suite of products that will help retailers deliver seamless, high-quality, post-order customer experience in line with that of large e-commerce platforms.

Launched in 2017, Shiprocket claims to be the fastest company to become profitable in 24 months while also doubling its annual revenue run (ARR) over the last 6 months. Shiprocket’s technology powers shipping and fulfillment for SMEs, D2C retailers, and social commerce sellers in India, across multiple categories including BPC, apparel, footwear, electronics and healthcare, among others, as per an official handout.