Zepto zeroes in on shopping mall for head office on Bengaluru's Sarjapur road; to move all employees by February

Zepto co-founders Aadit Palicha (L), and Kaivalya Vohra (R)

Hyperlocal quick commerce platform Zepto has finalised and signed a lease agreement to convert Total Mall on Sarjapur road into its office space in tech capital Bengaluru, people aware of the developments told Moneycontrol. The company has extended the deadline by a few months and has asked employees to relocate to Bengaluru by February, they added.

Moneycontrol was the first to report on August 6 that Zepto asked all employees to move from Powai in Mumbai to Sarjapur road in Bengaluru. While the initial plan was to move all 1,700-1,800 employees under one roof in Bengaluru by November, the company has extended the timeline because finding the apt place for its office location took longer than initially anticipated.

While the larger move will take time, Zepto has started moving some roles into an adhoc office in Bengaluru where operations will begin from around November 11, one of the persons cited said.

Zepto’s business verticals are based in Mumbai but its tech and product teams work from Bengaluru. After February, all key teams will work from the same office in Bengaluru.

Total Mall, which was renamed to Market Square mall, was once a bustling mall on Sarjapur road but is now being repurposed to become the headquarters of Zepto, one of the key players in India’s quick commerce space which is growing at the cost of modern trade, ecommerce and kirana (mom-and-pop) stores, as reported by Moneycontrol earlier.

Zepto did not immediately reply to Moneycontrol’s queries.

The estimated cost for relocating Zepto’s headquarters from Mumbai to Bengaluru is around Rs 3-4 crore as a one-time expense, sources had told Moneycontrol. “The relocation cost will be offset because Zepto will save around Rs 40-50 lakh in rent per month because of its move from Mumbai to Bengaluru,” one of the sources said.

As it sets up an office on Sarjapur road, Zepto will be placed closer to rivals such as Swiggy and Flipkart, both of which have offices in the same vicinity.

Of the 1,700-1,800 Zepto employees, around 1,000 are in Mumbai, 400 in Bengaluru and 300 are spread across different regions for city operations.

“Of the total 1,000 employees in Mumbai, around 90 percent are already willing to move and the remaining are in discussions to relocate. If all goes to plan, just 5-7 percent of the 1,000 will be unable to move to Bengaluru,” a person aware of the developments had said earlier.

Zepto plans to hire 500 employees for the corporate side and increase total strength to around 2,200-2,300, Zepto co-founder and CEO Aadit Palicha had said in an interview to Moneycontrol earlier. Palicha along with Kaivalya Vohra had started Zepto in 2021 and in a span of three years the company has raised over $1.5 billion from Nexus Venture Partners, StepStone Group and several others who have valued the company at $5 billion.