Ashneer Grover, chief financial officer of Softbank-backed Grofers has quit the firm even as reports of the company's merger with rival BigBasket have been making the rounds.
Grover quit in August and is yet to join his next organisation.
'Right now I am taking a break. Will be disclosing where I am going post-Diwali. I am in the middle of conversations now," he told Moneycontrol.
"It is very preliminary but most likely it is now going to be in a business leadership role as against the role of a CFO. I would most probably be heading a business now," he added.
Grover, however, declined to share the name of the company saying that he is still to accept the offer.
Albinder Dhindsa, the co-founder of Grofers said that a new chief financial officer has been hired who will join the company on October 16. Without disclosing the name of the executive, he said that he has over 25 years of experience and will be coming from a multi-national company.
Dhindsa also categorically said that there were no talks of a merger with BigBasket.
Grover joined Grofers in March 2017 before which he was serving as the director, corporate development at American Express.
He has pursued his civil engineering from IIT-Delhi and MBA from IIM-Ahmedabad.
Founded in 2013, Grofers started as a hyperlocal delivery service provider wherein it picked up goods from the neighbourhood grocery stores to deliver them to the consumers. It used to charge a commission on the value of goods delivered from the merchants.
Over the last one year, the company has been shifting from hyperlocal to more of inventory led model. It has also launched private label brands such as Freshbury and Best Value that govern larger margins.
The company that had shut its services in nine cities – citing poor response last year eventually relaunched many of those cities such as Ludhiana with the launch of its "self" express model, towards the end of 2016.
Under this model, Grofers just aggregates the orders for merchants, while the delivery is taken care of by the partners themselves.
Grofers last raised USD 120 million from Softbank, Russian venture capitalist Yuri Milner and existing investors Tiger Global and Sequoia Capital in November 2015.
The company's merger talks are being reported since at least early this year. There hasn't been any conclusion on the same as yet.
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