Zepto will shift its headquarters from Mumbai to Bengaluru
Quick commerce startup Zepto is preparing to shift its base from Powai in Mumbai to Sarjapur in India’s tech capital Bengaluru. The company already has an office in Bengaluru, but it wants to consolidate operations across different cities by shifting all corporate roles to one larger location.
According to Moneycontrol, the business vertical of this three-year-old company is in Mumbai and the tech and product teams are in Bengaluru.
It is currently planning to bring all its 1,700-1,800 employees under one roof. The company may shift to Bengaluru by the end of November or beginning of December. According to the report, the company will bear the transfer expenses of all the employees willing to go to Bengaluru.
The cost of this shifting can be around Rs 3-4 crore. The relocation cost can be compensated as Zepto estimates to save around Rs 40-50 lakh per month in rent due to moving from Mumbai to Bengaluru.
Zepto close to rivals
Zepto has two large offices in India, comprising 80,000-90,000 sq ft of space in Mumbai and 30,000-40,000 sq ft of space in Bengaluru. It will leave both these buildings and shift the office to a larger property of 1.5 lakh square feet in Bengaluru.
According to the report, Zepto is already in the final stages of finalizing a property of this size in nearby areas of Sarjapur, HSR or Bellandur. Many large multinational companies (MNCs) and new age startups are present in Bellandur, HSR, Sarjapur and surrounding areas. Setting up an office in one of these areas will bring Zepto closer to rivals like Swiggy and Flipkart, which also have offices in the same area.
Company’s hiring plans
Of Zepto’s 1,700-1,800 employees, about 1,000 are spread across Mumbai, 400 in Bengaluru and 300 across different regions, overseeing urban operations. According to the report, about 90 percent of the total 1,000 employees in Mumbai are already ready to be transferred and the remaining are discussing it. If everything goes as per planning, only 5-7 per cent of the 1,000 will not be able to go to Bengaluru.
This is a risk Zepto is willing to take because it believes it is a growing company, which makes it easier to attract talent. Continued funding rounds will prove to be even more helpful in Zepto’s case. In future, most of its hiring will be for and from Bengaluru. Earlier in an interview with Moneycontrol, Zepto co-founder and CEO Adit Palicha had said that the company plans to hire 500 employees for the corporate side and take the total headcount to around 2,200-2,300 .
This move by Zepto comes at a time when the Tech Entrepreneurs Association of Mumbai (TEAM) is trying to make Mumbai an attractive city for founders. Harsh Jain of Dream11, Ashwin Damera of Eruditus and many others are part of the TEAM; However, other prominent founders who have moved from Mumbai to Bengaluru in the last decade include Ola’s Bhavish Aggarwal, Unacademy’s Gaurav Munjal, Cred’s Kunal Shah, Jupiter’s Jitendra Gupta and many others.
