CFOs in demand at startups amid funding winter, profitability woes

An increasing number of tech companies and startups are scouting for experts ranging from CFO's to industry executives to manage financial affairs and corporate governance amid a funding winter

Last year, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs asked edtech giant Byju’s to explain why it hasn’t filed its audited financials for the year ending March 2021. It also sent Byju’s parent company a letter asking them to explain the seventeen-month delay in filing audited accounts. Earlier this year Byju’s reportedly sought more time from lenders to renegotiate an agreement governing a $1.2 billion loan that is in breach of covenants, according to people familiar with the matter. One of the terms set by the lenders was asking the firm to hire a chief financial officer (CFO). All these challenges are expected to be resolved as the Bengaluru-based firm recently appointed Ajay Goel as its CFO. The seasoned global finance professional has been hired to strengthen the company's financial operations, long-term business strategies, and path to profitability.

Byju’s is among an increasing number of tech companies and startups which are scouting for experts ranging from CFOs to industry executives to manage financial affairs and corporate governance amid a funding winter and macroeconomic uncertainty.

As CFO, Goel will be responsible for overseeing financial strategy and management for Byju’s. He will work closely with the founders and the senior leadership on strategy development, capital planning, and financial analysis. With over two decades of experience, Goel has a proven track record of delivering strong financial and operational results to companies across sectors, including Vedanta, Diageo, GE, Coca-Cola, and Nestle.

“His (Goel) strategic thinking and financial acumen will be instrumental in helping us create even more value for our stakeholders,” said Byju Raveendran, founder, and CEO, Byju’s.

Goel has been appointed as CFO at a time when the US-based asset manager BlackRock has reportedly reduced the valuation of the Byju’s by about 50 per cent to $11.5 billion. This is a sharp decrease from the $22 billion at which the Bengaluru-based edtech decacorn was last valued in 2022. Byju’s posted losses of Rs 4,588 crore in FY21, 19 times more than the preceding year, according to the latest available financial report. Byju’s, valued at $22 billion, was targeting to be profitable by March this year and Goel is now expected to play a role in that. Goel is also expected o help the company in fundraising amid a brutal funding winter and macroeconomic uncertainty. Byju’s is in the process of raising $700 million from investors. According to the sources, the due diligence has been completed, but the money has not been transferred to Byju’s yet.

Top startups are also hiring such professionals for the next phase of scale including plans for initial public offering. Quick grocery delivery platform Zepto recently appointed crypto firm CoinSwitch’s CFO Ramesh Bafna as its CFO. Bafna is also an ex-CFO of Myntra and an early member of the Flipkart team and has almost 2 decades of experience overall. Bafna’s appointment signifies major milestones in Zepto’s growth and profitability metrics. The company is now focusing on building an industry-leading finance team for its next phase of scale.

"Ramesh (Bafna)  is a best-in-class e-commerce CFO and he will build a best-in-class finance team at Zepto. Through disciplined execution, Zepto is delivering incredible progress on growth and profitability,” said Zepto’s co-founder and CEO, Aadit Palicha.

He added, “To take Zepto public in 2-3 years, we believe we need an incredible CFO and Ramesh is the right person for the job. I’m looking forward to this journey of building a generational company with him onboard!”

Last year Zepto raised $200 million in Series D, valuing the quick commerce company at around $900 million. However, the Mumbai-based firm reportedly incurred a loss of Rs 390.3 crore on a standalone basis in its first year of operations in the financial year 2021-22 (FY22). Its total revenue was 142.3 crore in FY22. Zepto, which began operations in April 2021, had total expenses of Rs 532.7 crore in FY22.

ReshaMandi – India's largest farm-to-fashion digital ecosystem for natural fibres–recently appointed Samadrita Chakravarty as its group chief financial officer(CFO). Chakravarty will be overseeing ReshaMandi's financial operations, long-term fiscal plans, and management of assets, besides offering insightful predictions about the market, and their probable impact on the company's fortunes. As CFO, Samadrita will be an integral part of ReshaMandi's decision-making team. She will offer guidance on future investment, while constantly analysing the market to evolve risk management policies.

“I am looking forward to my journey here, with the primary focus being on profitability as the company enters a new phase of growth,” said Chakravarty, a qualified chartered accountant and cost and management accountant with 27 years of experience in finance.

ReshaMandi’s founder and chief executive officer Mayank Tiwari said that ReshaMandi will benefit from Chakravarty’s expertise in finance, auditing, and strategising, which will help ReshaMandi turn net PAT (profit after tax) positive over the next two quarters.

ReshaMandi has also recently strengthened its finance leadership with the appointments of Vandeep Singh Ratra as vice president of finance and Nikhil Periwal as finance controller. These appointments will bolster the company's financial management capabilities.

Top startups are also scouting for industry experts to set up high standards of governance, and compliance. Fintech unicorn Razorpay which is valued at $7.5 billion has set up an advisory board of industry leaders from different fields to establish the highest standards in customer experience, corporate governance and risk and compliance in the Indian fintech industry. 

These leaders include N. S. Vishwanathan, former deputy governor, Reserve Bank of India (chairperson), and Arijit Basu, chairman, HDB Financial Services and former MD, State Bank of India (member). The other members of the advisory board include Aruna Sundararajan - IAS (retd.) and former secretary, Ministries of Steel, IT and Telecom, GoI (member) and K. P. Krishnan - IAS (retd.) and former secretary, Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (member).

The council will also help contribute to the development of Razorpay’s payment infrastructure and help engage with key institutions and stakeholders.

“The last 8 years at Razorpay have been exceptionally great, we’ve had the privilege of serving and solving for over 10 million businesses,” said Harshil Mathur, chief executive officer, and co-founder at Razorpay. “Now in our next phase of growth as India’s leading end-to-end money movement platform for businesses, we have a strong intent to put in place further systems to uphold the highest standards of customer experience and governance. We believe that with their strategic inputs, knowledge, and guidance, Razorpay is sure to build best practices in the fintech industry that will aid us in sound decision-making.”