Zepto nears $4 billion annualised gross order value, halves burn rate

Quick commerce platform Zepto's annualised gross order value (GOV) is nearing $4 billion, marking 300% year-on-year growth, chief executive Aadit Palicha said Wednesday.

The General Catalyst-backed firm has also “reduced Ebitda [excluding ESOPs] and OCF (operating cash flow) burn by half, even as we grew meaningfully during the last three months”, Palicha wrote in a LinkedIn post.

The reduced cash burn should ease the pressure on Zepto's balance sheet. Companies in the quick commerce space have been burning around Rs 1,500 crore a month on operations.


“We are confident in being within touching distance of Ebitda (excluding Esops) and operating cash flow breakeven within a few months (with a large net cash buffer still on the balance sheet),” he wrote.


According to Palicha, the GOV includes income from sources such as subscription fee and advertisements.

“Our newly launched dark stores continue to track towards Ebitda breakeven, just as the dark stores we launched over the last three years did in our previous store expansion cycles,” he said.

The startup, which is fighting a tough competition with Zomato-owned Blinkit and Swiggy Instamart, has begun introducing measures to improve margins and increase earnings per order in a move towards operational profitability.

Blinkit had annualised GOV of $3.6 billion in the quarter ended December 31, as per Zomato’s results. Swiggy Instamart posted an annualised gross sale run rate of $1.8 billion in the same quarter.

According to a Citi Research report, Blinkit has a 41% market share in the quick commerce segment, while Swiggy Instamart has 23%. It said Zepto might be at par or higher than Instamart in market share.

Zepto is actively exploring options to significantly boost domestic ownership in the company. The founders may raise $100–150 million through debt financing to buy shares from existing foreign investors.

The company is also looking to file its draft papers for an initial public offering by the end of April. ET had reported that Zepto has set the last quarter of FY26 for Ebitda profitability to public market investors, as it works to rein in cash burn and streamline its network of about 1,000 dark stores.