Udaan CFO Aditya Pande quits, third top exit in less than 6 months

CFO Pande has stepped down a month after Udaan secured $340 million in additional capital from UK's M&G Plc, Lightspeed Venture Partners and DST Global.

Udaan's chief financial officer (CFO) Aditya Pande has quit, the B2B e-commerce startup said on January 22, the latest in a growing list of top-level executives who have left the startup over the past few months.

Pande will join InterGlobe Enterprises as CEO of the company. He was earlier the CFO of Indigo, also part of the InterGlobe group, between September 2019 and February 2021 after which he immediately joined Udaan.

The CFO's role will be divided between Kiran Thadimarri, Group Finance Controller, and Vishnu Menon, who heads corporate strategy & investor relations (IR). Thadimarri has been with Udaan for three years and Menon for four years.

"I would like to thank Aditya for his invaluable contribution to the organisation and wish him the very best in his future endeavours,” CEO and co-founder Vaibhav Gupta, said in a press release.

Pande's departure comes months after Udaan has seen other senior executives leave. In September, chief business officer (CBO) Vivek Gupta and chief technology officer (CTO) Gaurav Bhalotia left the company as merged its essentials business with the discretionary business.

While Bhalotia's next move remains unknown, Vivek Gupta, joined United Breweries as the CEO. CBO Gupta, CFO Pande join an increasing number of executives who are leaving startups to join traditional companies. In October 202, Ajay Goel also left Byju's to return to Vedanta as its CFO.

Top-level departures at Udaan since September 2023

The rejig meant that FMCG, staples and pharmacy categories were integrated with the division that sells general merchandise, lifestyle and electronics-related products.

The restructuring was largely done to improve the company's financial health. Now that CFO Pande has left, the new executives will steer Udaan towards profitability.

"Both Kiran and Vishnu will work towards further strengthening the financial and governance practices at Udaan with the objective of enabling the company to achieve operational profitability and public market readiness in the next 12-18 months," the company statement said.

Pande stepped down a month after Udaan secured $340 million in additional capital from UK's M&G Plc, Lightspeed Venture Partners and DST Global in a down round. 

Udaan saw its valuation fall to around $1.8 billion, a significant reduction from $3.1 billion in January 2022. The erosion in value was because Udaan's business had slowed. As a result of the slowdown, Udaan even fired 10 percent of its workforce, or about 150 people, as reported in December.