‘We almost died’: Zepto CEO Aadit Palicha reflects on Silicon Valley Bank crisis

In a candid reflection on Zepto’s early years, CEO Aadit Palicha opened up about the startup’s near-collapse during the 2022–2023 funding crunch, revealing how hiring missteps and the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) crisis nearly brought the company to a standstill.

Palicha admitted that bringing in the wrong talent during those formative stages was the startup’s biggest vulnerability.

“The biggest mistakes I made were wrong hires,” he said, pointing to early failures across finance, operations, marketing, and category management as critical…