Former Swiggy exec Karthik Gurumurthy shelves offline startup, returns capital to Matrix Partners

With the decision to return capital to investors, Gurumurthy now joins a list of other founders who have adopted a similar approach in the past. His case is however different from most others.

Karthik Gurumurthy, former senior vice president at Swiggy, has returned the capital he raised from investors including Matrix Partners India, signalling a halt to his plans for launching a new offline venture, people familiar with the matter told Moneycontrol.

In November 2023, Moneycontrol had reported that Gurumurthy was quitting Swiggy to start his own company after spending over three-and-a-half years with the food tech startup.

A few months later, in January, Moneycontrol also reported that Gurumurthy had raised $3 million from Matrix Partners India and others to start Convenio, a low-cost chain of physical stores. The model was similar to what Aldi does in Germany, the UK and other parts of Europe.

Plans to shelve the offline venture comes at a time when quick commerce is booming in India. An increasing number of customers are now warming up to the idea of ordering groceries and fresh produce – exactly what Gurumurthy was intending to cater to with Convenio – on apps like Blinkit, Swiggy Instamart (initially built by Gurumurthy himself), Zepto and Tata BigBasket.

Zepto co-founder and CEO Aadit Palicha recently told Moneycontrol that quick commerce is growing primarily at the cost of supermarkets, hypermarkets and e-commerce companies because customer preferences are changing.

Even as those plans are not going through, Gurumurthy is already working on a fresh plan and building a new startup, sources told Moneycontrol. The company is still in stealth mode and more details were not immediately available.

Matrix Partners India and Gurumurthy did not reply to Moneycontrol’s queries.

Gurumurthy, however, updated his LinkedIn to confirm that he has shelved his offline venture and is already working on his next startup.

In April, Moneycontrol had reported that former VP of Swiggy, Karan Arora, had also quit the company and was working alongside Gurumurthy on the duo’s new venture.

Returning capital

With the decision to return capital to investors, Gurumurthy now joins a list of other founders who have adopted a similar approach in the past. His case is however different from most others.

While some companies, like Peak XV Partners-backed Nintee, a digital health startup, was returning capital because it was shutting down, others like Accel-backed Fashinza, returned money to investors, after they decided to pivot.

“Returning unused capital to investors is always a nice idea when you know the startup will not work. There shouldn’t be a stigma around it at all. In fact, it only builds a founder's credibility and is validation for the next time around,” a partner at a large VC firm said.

“It’s always better to figure out early that an idea will not work rather than spending 5-7 years on it and realising later that the business should have been different,” the partner added.