Over 40 Indian startup leaders transitioned between founding and executive roles in 2024: report

Over 40 executives in the Indian startup ecosystem moved between senior leadership roles and entrepreneurial positions, with some stepping up as founders and CEOs, according to data shared by executive search firm Longhouse Consulting.

Karthik Gurumurthy, former head of Swiggy Instamart, donned the cofounder hat by partnering with legendary cricketer Sachin Tendulkar to launch SRT10 Athleisure, a sports athleisure brand. He was joined by another former Swiggy executive, Karan Arora, as the third cofounder, as reported by ET.

Amid several top-level movements at Flipkart, Ayyappan R, who led the travel booking platform Cleartrip owned by the ecommerce major, exited the firm to build his own quick commerce startup, FirstClub. The startup recently raised $8 million in a seed funding round led by venture capital firms Accel and RTP Global, with Flipkart cofounder Binny Bansal participating as an angel investor.

Another significant executive-to-founder transition was when Abhijit Upadhye, previously a partner at Binny Bansal’s consultancy startup xto10x, joined rural commerce startup Rozana as a cofounder. Rozana, backed by 3One4 Capital, Bertelsmann India Investments and Fireside Ventures, had earlier announced its collaboration with xto10x to enhance warehouse design, last-mile delivery, technology and new product category launches.

In the gaming sector, which is witnessing disruption as Indian studios focus on complex game development, Karan Shroff, former chief marketing officer at Unacademy, cofounded LightFury Games. He partnered with Tina Balachandran, who previously served as senior vice president at the edtech firm.

Other notable transitions include Utkrishta Kumar, former chief experience officer at Meesho, who launched his fintech venture Oolka, and Manish Chawla, ex-vice president at Zomato, who started his consulting firm Noviq Consulting.

This year, the startup ecosystem has also seen a trend where some leaders chose to step away from their cofounder roles to take on senior executive positions, bringing their entrepreneurial expertise to established firms.

Curefit cofounder Shamik Sharma moved to Australian enterprise software company Atlassian Corporation as senior vice president of engineering, while Maruthy Ramgandhi, cofounder of women-centric fashion platform Stumbl, joined Snitch, a new-age fashion brand, as chief technology officer.