Swiggy appoints Sahil Barua, Mallika Srinivasan, Shailesh Haribhakti as independent board directors

These are the first set of independent directors on Swiggy’s board and join current members Sriharsha Majety – CEO and cofounder of Swiggy, Nandan Reddy, cofounder of Swiggy, Larry Illg, CEO of Prosus’ Edtech and Food, Ashutosh Sharma, head of investment, India, Prosus Ventures; Sumer Juneja, managing director, India and EMEA, SoftBank Investment Advisors and Anand Daniel, partner at Accel.

“We’re very excited about bringing on Mallika Srinivasan, Shailesh Haribhakti, and Sahil Barua to Swiggy’s board of directors,” said Majety.

“They have very rich and diverse experiences in building sustainable businesses at scale. Getting these new and powerful perspectives and strengthening our governance will immensely benefit us as we march ahead in our mission to bring unparalleled convenience to consumers.”

The move comes on the back of Swiggy’s plan to tap the public markets, which was afoot till last year.

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However, with the tech rout hitting stocks globally and in India, the company may look to push its listing for now.

Swiggy has also cut jobs and said it will conserve cash going forward.

On January 20, Majety wrote to employees about slashing 380 jobs as part of a companywide restructuring caused by slowing growth in its food delivery business.

Majety said in an internal note to employees, reviewed by ET, that growth at the food delivery business has not been in line with the company’s projections.

He said Swiggy over-hired and that it has been “a case of poor judgement” on his part. “Our over-hiring is a case of poor judgement and I should have done better here,” he said.

Backed by Prosus, the technology investment arm of South African conglomerate Naspers, Swiggy has been trying to reduce cash burn in key businesses such as food delivery and Instamart, amid a clear slowdown in late-stage funding in startups.

Prosus said in a filing in November last year that its share of Swiggy’s trading loss increased to $105 million, from $34 million, driven by investments to increase growth in both the core food delivery business and in Instamart. This translated to a burn of over $300 million for the six months ended September 2022.

Swiggy recently launched several new units, including premium grocery delivery service Handpicked, direct-to-commerce ecommerce marketplace Minis and restaurant table reservation service DineOut.

Majety had said that Swiggy will continue to back these initiatives

The company is facing heated competition from Zomato in the food delivery space and other well funded players in the quick commerce business.

According to brokerage firm Jefferies, Swiggy’s losses during January-June were “much higher, at over $315 million,” compared with around $50 million in losses for rival Zomato on a standalone basis, and nearly $170 million inclusive of losses at the latter’s quick commerce unit Blinkit.