Reliance Retail-owned subscription commerce platform Milkbasket has seen exits at the top level as the Mukesh Ambani-led company fully integrated the former into JioMart’s business, say three sources.
While four of its co-founders left the company last year, Milkbasket’s only co-founder Yatish Talvadia along with Chief Operating Officer Abhinav Imandi and Chief Financial Officer Gaurav Srivastava left the company recently.
Talvadia also spearheaded Milkbasket for about 21 months as its CEO whereas Imandi and Srivastava had around 4 and 5 years long stints, respectively.
Entrackr has also confirmed these changes through their respective LinkedIn profiles.
“Close to a dozen senior executives [have] also left Milkbasket while others are likely to resign in [the] coming weeks,” said one of the sources who requested anonymity.
Such departures of the founding team are common after a complete integration with the acquirer but they also influence other senior employees to leave. “Changes at the top typically hamper growth and it would be exciting to see how Milkbasket proceeds from here without any of its original founders and core team,” said the person quoted above.
Queries sent to Reliance, Imandi, and Srivastava didn’t elicit any response while Talvadia couldn’t be reached for comments despite multiple attempts.
Significantly, Milkbasket’s other co-founders Ashish Jain, Anurag Jain and Anant Goel moved from the firm in July 2021. Goel returned as an entrepreneur and launched a fresh farm produce platform called Sorted last year and raised over $5 million in funding.
Sources outline that Milkbasket has expanded aggressively ever since its acquisition by Reliance. Until 2021, it was only operational in Delhi (NCR) and Bengaluru but it is present in 32 cities. Reliance is also using Milkbasket’s warehouses for JioMart’s fulfillment in these cities.
According to a report by The Ken, Milkbasket commands nearly one-third of the next-day delivery segment currently. Reliance Retail Ventures acquired Milkbasket in October 2021 after disputes between Goel and the company’s prime backer Kalaari Capital.
Milkbasket (Aaidea Solutions Limited) is yet to disclose its FY23 financials. Its collection declined 19% to Rs 421 crore in FY22 from Rs 522 crore in FY21 whereas the firm’s losses shot up 98% to Rs 66 crore. Before its acquisition, the company mopped up $33 million from Inflection Point Ventures, Mayfield India, Unilever, Beenext, Blume Ventures, Kalaari, Lenovo Capital and a clutch of angels.
