My friend called me yesterday, sounding shaken.
He did not get a meeting. He did not get a warning. He logged in at 9:00 AM and his screen simply said Access Denied.
Ten minutes later, a generic email landed in his personal inbox.
Your role is no longer required.
No notice. No handshake. And worst of all, his ESOPs vanished because of the fine print tied to his termination date.
While headlines cheer India’s next big IPO, the ground reality for people building it is getting brutal.
The company is Zepto.
Multiple reports confirm that Zepto has confidentially filed draft IPO papers with SEBI.
The target raise is around $1.3 billion, roughly ₹11,000 crore.
If it goes through, this would rank among the largest public listings by a new age Indian tech company, alongside names like Zomato and Swiggy.
But how Zepto filed matters more than the filing itself.
In a normal IPO, everything becomes public. Revenue, losses, salaries, mistakes.
A confidential filing lets the company show its numbers only to SEBI first.
If the company delays, fixes issues, or backs out, the public never sees the messy details.
In simple terms, Zepto is testing investor appetite without public embarrassment.
The growth is real. The losses are bigger.
- Revenue: ₹9,669 crore in FY 25, up 129 percent
- Net loss: ₹3,367 crore, widening 177 percent
This is the brutal math of quick commerce.
Speed costs money. Dark stores, rider incentives, discounts, refunds, failed deliveries, and instant logistics burn cash fast.
Zepto is scaling rapidly, but it is burning even faster.
That is Zepto’s approximate daily cash burn based on FY 25 losses.
Throughout 2025, reports indicate that hundreds of employees were laid off across operations, support, and payments teams.
Official language calls this performance restructuring.
The market calls it IPO hygiene.
Layoffs before listing usually do three things.
- Reduce fixed costs
- Improve headline margins
- Clean up ESOP obligations
For employees, it feels colder.
Instant access revocation. Vesting cutoffs. Equity promises disappearing just months before a potential listing.
1. Quick commerce is fragile
If revenue can grow 129 percent and losses still widen, it shows how expensive instant delivery really is.
2. The startup dream is changing
The old promise of join early, get ESOPs, retire at IPO is cracking. Stability may matter again.
3. Public markets will be unforgiving
Once listed, quarterly losses will be judged harshly.
Because the filing is confidential, the public prospectus may appear months from now.
If cleared, Zepto is expected to launch its IPO in mid to late 2026.
Until then, expect quieter cost control.
- Higher delivery fees
- Fewer discounts
- More automation
The Bottom Line: Zepto is dressing up for the stock market. The question for investors is simple. Can convenience finally beat cash burn?
Fun fact: Zepto’s founders are still in their early twenties. A successful IPO would make them among the youngest unicorn founders to list in India.
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Subscribe to First ScrollSources: Economic Times | Moneycontrol | ET Retail | Reuters
