Seems like 3 is both the lucky and unlucky number for India in the domain of entrepreneurship. While one report claims India to grab the third position in the startup ecosystem, the other says it ranks third in the number of Tech startup exits as well. Fingers crossed, maybe 2017 gets the so-called and so-desired Acche Din for all of us! Time to analyze and evaluate. This year was significant, in fact extremely memorable for all the startups. It has showed an exceedingly high number of exits from our “Dearest Unicorn Companies.”

Some startups seemed to not have been affected by the exits while some are still unable to recover the loss. While some senior executives exit due to better opportunities, personal goals, some disappeared with an air of mystery. This year has seen a long list of executive exits. And in many cases, top CXO’s and Directors quit to join traditional companies. Check out the 30+ executive exits from startups this year. May 2017 see less of this.

Flipkart

Flipkart has always craved to reach the zenith. Whether we should exclaim with joy or express it with grief, it tops the list here too. Flipkart had to change its top management structure many times this year. Flipkart has been struggling continuously to fight the mega-giant Amazon in India. After trying with groceries, furniture and what not, Flipkart has been crazy over expanding its line of products. But the recent report on the turnover doesn’t seem everything is going smooth internally. Check the top startup quits from Flipkart this year.

  • Ankit Nagori

Chief Business Officer, Ankit Nagori has decided to start his own venture in the field of Sports. And, amazingly, Sachin and Binny Bansal are the first ones to invest in his company. This is one indication that the relations are pretty good between both the parties as of now.

  • Manish Maheshwari

The Head of Seller and Ecosystem at Flipkart left the company to join Web18, Network18 Group as the new Chief Executive Officer. It is among the top startup exits this year and we hope, it does not impact this Unicorn Startup much.

  • Mukesh Bansal

Mukesh Bansal played a key role in gearing up Myntra and its operations to make it the best online fashion portal. Officially, heading the Commerce and Advertising business, is no more related to Flipkart. There were rumors that things were not running smooth with many senior managers. However, we wish rumors are cleared instantly. Nevertheless, we cannot forget this statement made by Mukesh Bansal, “After exiting Flipkart, I felt relieved because the last nine to ten years were intense.”

  • Peeyush Ranjan

The former chief officer in Flipkart, Peeyush Ranjan quits the company at the end of December. Peeyush Ranjan has scaled up the company’s infrastructure and one of the faces behind opening the biggest data centres in India. He plans to join Aribnb in United States as the Vice President of Engineering based out of San Francisco.

  • Punit Soni

One of the most active personality, as well as a renowned face in Silicon Valley is no longer associated with the company. He was the Chief Product Officer at Flipkart. He wishes to move to US with this family, and start something on his own.

  • Rajinder Sharma

General Counsel and Legal Head at Flipkart  quit after a period of 10 months only. However his exit at the time when new laws were established by the government was alarming for the company.

  • Sanjay Baweja

December 31st is officially the last day of Sanjay Baweja at Flipkart. And another loss of talent for Flipkart. There is not information on the future plans. However, it is likely that he intends to join Tata Group after the sacking of Cyrus Mistry from chairmanship.

  • Sharat Singh

The famous startup quit just after six months of joining Flipkart. He was the Chief Technology Officer at MakeMyTrip and later joined Flipkart as the Vice President of Engineering. Sharat Singh has joined US based MNC as Vice President of Engineering.

Housing

Housing.com is planning to make a smart move by re-launching the rental space in India. After Modi Ji’s Demonetization scheme, this startup ensures to ammend itself and acquire the maximum benefits. Regarded as one of the innovative startups in the sector, Housing.com has witnessed a lot of exits this year.

And very carefully and smartly, senior level employee tries to dismiss everything saying, “It was a good time for several of the founders to move on. They had spent many years building the product, establishing a brand but then the company needed a set of heads who would help it reach the next level. Perhaps, the founders needed more learning before they took on that task,” says another senior employee at the company.” Sounds a bit bold and curt! We are indeed looking forward to see the revenue reports of Housing in 2017!

  • Abhishek Anand, Ravish Naresh and Sanat Ghosh

All the three cofounders quit the startup to start a venture on their own. After the removal of Rahul Yadav under dramatic cirumstances last year, this is another major startup exit in 2016 for Housing.

  • Adivitya Sharma

This is yet another exit from the founding team of Housing.com. Adivitya Sharma has decided to start his own venture. A person, who is outspoken and has shared the goods and flaws Housing has made in the past few years. He left the company in good terms.

  • Amit Das

Amit Das quit the job right after three months of joining Housing.com as its Co-founder. He has joined UrbanClap as the Head of Design and Product Dvelopment Team.

Myntra

Myntra acquired Jabong this year. And, startup exits start after one month of acquiring. The internal story remains hidden. Though we really wish, the reason is not what we are thinking!

  • Abhishek Verma

Abhishek Verma was the head of Fashion Brands at Myntra. He quit Myntra along with Prasad Kompalli to start his own venture.

  • Gautam Kotamraju

Chief Creative officer, Gautam Kotamraju quit Myntra to join the biggest rival of Flipkart-controlled company, Amazon.

  • Prabhakar Sunder

Prabhakar Sunder who was looked after the finance in the company quit startup. And interestingly, he has joined the fashion rival of Myntra, Voonik this year.

  • Prasad Kompalli

Kompalli heads the e-Commerce platform at Myntra quits Myntra one month after Myntra acquiring Jabong. Prasad planned to move into an advisory role from October. He wanted to use the experience gained in Myntra to pursue his personal ambitions.

Twitter India

Twitter said that it would cut 9% of its global workforce to reduce its cost. Well, we wish cutting down 9% of global workforce is a smart approach by Twitter to gain more margins. Being the leading Microblogging site, Twitter India has seen a top executives quitting this year.

  • Parminder Singh

Managing Director of India, Southeast Asia and MENA, Parminder Singh quit Twitter India to pursue his passions. He aims to start a content-based startup in India and Singapore.

  • Ravi Bhaskaran

This is one of the most recent startup exits which happened in December, 2016. Ravi Bhaskaran joined Twitter India as the Head of Business Development/Platform partnerships in South Asia. However, he quit to join Uber India as Head of partnerships.

  • Rishi Jaitly

Head of Twitter India, Rishi Jaitly’s quit is one among the top startup exits in 2016. He quit for personal reasons. He assured that he would spend a nice proportion of time in India/ Asia in the sector of technology. The Technology Bubble! We see!

Jabong

The acquisition of Jabong by Flipkart in July for $70 million will strengthen Flipkart’s position in the Indian marketplace. Very recently acquired, Jabong has started to see startup exits. Though the luck of the acquirer has already started to impact Jabong.

  • Sanjeev Mohanty

Sanjeev Mohanty is regarded best for its work in Benetton. He joined Jabong as Managing Director but quit after a small term only. Sanjeev Mohanty joined Levi Strauss  & Co as the Managing Director of the South Asia’s operations.

  • Saurabh Goel

Jabong’s Chief Product Officer quit the startup after eight months in the company. He plans to start his own venture in the domain of financial technology.

  • Saurabh Srivatsava

Saurabh Srivastava was the Head of Marketing Operations at Jabong. However, no additional information on the quit by the individual or the company.

Ola Cabs

Being India’s fastest startup to enter the unicorn club, we hope it does not speed up in the context of startup exits. Check out the startup exits from on this company that has been the favorite of the most in India. They did not wish to ride in this company anymore.

  • Pradeep Dodle and Harsha Kumar

Ola has seen resignation of two senior executives this year. Pradeep Dodle, Head of Cabs Category Management and Harsha Kumar, Associate Vice President of product is one of the top startup exits in 2016. They wish to start their own app venture.

  • Suvomoy Sarkar

Suvomoy Sarkar chose a Traditional Business firm over this largest growing taxi-app la. He joined Sears Holdings Corporation as the Head of Analytics in India’s centre.

Holidify

This destination discovery platform is the one of the favorite among the users and it has had an inspiring story. However, the ‘exit’ bug has not spared anyone. And, indeed this is one extreme case where both the cofounders quit. Hope, things are smooth at Holidify.

  • Kovid Kapoor

The second cofounder left a few week after Rohit Shroff quit Holidify. According to the sources, Kovid has joned Saavn as Tech Lead.

  • Rohit Shroff

Co-founder and CEO, Rohit Shroff left Holidifyto join Girnar Software Pvt Ltd as the associate director, the parent of auto portal CarDekho.com

Snapdeal

Snapdeal has started looking at things lying outside its domain. Currently it is in news to deliver Rs. 2000/- at customers’ doorsteps. This is one innovation that has come from within indeed. Check the startup exits from Snapdeal in 2016.

  • Anand Chandrasekaran

Being the Chief Product Officer of Sanpdeal he quit after 1 year of joining the company. He aims to pursue etrepreneurship and start his own venture this time after co-founding Aeroprise and working at Snapdeal

  • Srinivas Murthy

The marketing head quits Snapdeal to start his own venture. The passion for entrepreneurship forces him to leave the job and start working on his interest.

InMobi

InMobi is India’s first billion dollar valuation startup. Too much valuations. We hope that it does not fall into a trap!

Read: Mahesh Murthy’s take on startups getting trapped by high valuations

InMobi has seen high profils startup exits in 2015 also. Here are the top executives who quit in 2016.

  • Manish Dugar

Manish Dugar quit InMobi as the Chief Financial Officer. He has moved from the online ad network to join Practo, startup in the Healthcare sector as its global chief financial officer.

  • Samuel John

The director of operations at mobile advertising and discovery platform, Samuel John has quit the firm after approximately five years of service to InMobi. He will heading operations at Bangalore-based advertising startup GreedyGame.

Zomato

After several exits from Zomato last year like Namita Gupta and Durga Raghunath, it is noticed that Zomato has seen top executives and talent leaving the company after a small term of service. We wish luck to this yet another copy-paste model!

  • Tanmay Saksena

Tanmay Saksena was appointed as the Chief Product Officer in Zomato soon after he joined it. However, he quit the Zomato to quit healthcare startup, 1mg as its Chief Operating Officer.

Paytm

Paytm’s net losses in the financial year ended March, 2016 has increased by almost 312% over the previous year. And then this series of exits. However, we can expect some improvement after Modi Ji’s demonetization. It is going to benefit them for sure, don’t know if it will help the poor or reduce corruption and terrorist financing.

  • Vikas Purohit

Another high profile top startup exit this year, senior Vice President exits Paytm to start his own startup. Vikas Purohit has experience of 10 years in this field and has worked with reputed companies like Tommy Hilfiger and Madura Garments, and of course, Dearest Unicorn Startup, Paytm.

And, last but one exit this year we can never forget – Cyrus Mistry from Tata Global Beverages!

Countdowns have started. Team of The Hacker Street wishes happiness, luck and prosperity to all the startups in advance. May some of the extremely brilliant and unknown ones find a position in the unicorn club. But, try not to fall in this list in 2017.

Rashika Daga

Author at The Hacker Street
Engineer by mind, writer out of passion. An avid reader, keen observer and extremely enthusiastic in exploring new things. In a long term relationship with love and enjoyment.

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