According to the Draft Red Herring Prospectus (DRHP) filed ahead of its public market debut, quick commerce company Zepto reported a sharp spike in employee attrition alongside a shrinkage of its permanent workforce for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2026 (FY26).
The numbers reveal the human resources and operational churn happening behind the scenes as the company aggressively scales its top-line revenue.
1. The Core Attrition Breakdowns
The regulatory filings separate Zepto’s attrition into two major brackets: corporate staff and on-the-ground operational field forces.
- Corporate Permanent Employees: Attrition among permanent corporate staff jumped significantly to 51.28% in FY26, up from 40.48% in FY25. Because of this heavy churn, Zepto’s total permanent headcount shrank by 3.6% year-on-year, dropping to 5,212 employees.
- The Tech and Strategy Core: The shrinkage was most acute within the company’s central corporate functions (combined tech and non-tech offices), which contracted 13.6% down to 1,773 employees. Specifically, core technology teams witnessed a 15.6% drop in headcount.
- The Overall Gig-Worker Fleet: When factoring in Zepto’s massive operational backbone of 48,011 frontline workers—the pickers, packers, warehouse loaders, and last-mile delivery associates supporting its 1,139 dark stores—the company’s overall attrition rate reached a massive 73.22% for the fiscal year.
2. Senior Leadership Flight
The corporate restructuring coincided with a visible wave of executive departures across key business verticals over the trailing quarters, including:
- Chandan Rungta (CEO of Zepto’s meat vertical, Relish)
- Apoorv Pandey (Senior Vice President of Strategy)
- Shashank Shekhar Sharma (CXO at Zepto Cafe)
- Chandresh Dedhia (Vice President and Head of IT)
- Anant Rastogi (Senior Director of Brand)
3. The Structural Drivers Behind the Churn
In its regulatory filing, Zepto attributed the workforce turbulence to a mix of planned operational pivots and industry-wide norms:
- The Shift to Third-Party Payrolls: Zepto launched an aggressive cost-efficiency campaign that moved hundreds of specialized customer support and operational staff off its direct corporate payroll and onto third-party service vendors to lower fixed monthly costs.
- Aggressive Automation Pipelines: The company replaced several off-roll and operational functions with proprietary internal software dashboards designed to handle invoice processing, automated inventory replenishment, and real-time real estate management.
- Industry Churn Dynamics: Zepto highlighted that hyper-elevated turnover rates are common across the quick commerce sector due to the high-intensity nature of warehouse management and hyper-local delivery logistics.
4. Hyper-Growth vs. Widening Losses
The talent friction stands in stark contrast to Zepto’s explosive market performance. In its updated DRHP, the company reported that its annual operating revenue more than doubled, surging 103.6% to reach ₹22,623.5 crore in FY26.
However, full-year net losses also expanded by 25.6%, climbing to ₹5,905.1 crore due to surging delivery management, handling, and supply chain infrastructure deployment costs. Despite the workforce contraction, Zepto is moving forward with its blockbuster ₹8,010 crore IPO, having earmarked over ₹1,620 crore of the fresh proceeds strictly to expand its dark store footprint.