Former junior Swiggy employee embezzled ₹33 crore, investigation launched

Swiggy is using an external team to investigate the case and has also filed a legal complaint against the former junior employee who made off with ₹33 crore

One of Swiggy's former junior employees embezzled ₹33 crore from the company, according to a Moneycontrol article that cited the food delivery major's 2023-24 annual report.

Gig workers prepare to deliver orders outside Swiggy's grocery warehouse at a market area in New Delhi, India, May 6, 2024. (Priyanshu Singh/Reuters)

This led the company to commission an “external team” to investigate the matter. Swiggy also filed a "legal complaint" against the former employee behind this.

"The Group, during the current year, identified embezzlement of funds in one of the subsidiaries by a former junior employee amounting to ₹326.76 million over the past periods..," Swiggy's annual report released on September 4, read.

This is at a time when the company filed its draft papers on April 26 for an initial public offering (IPO) for raising up to ₹3,750 crore through a fresh issue and up to ₹6,664 crore as an offer-for-sale (OFS) component in its $1.25 billion IPO.

How did Swiggy perform financially?

Swiggy's revenue grew 36% to ₹11,247 crore and losses fell by 44% from to ₹2,350 crore, according to the reprot, which attributed the increase in profitability to the investment in Instamart.

The company's expenses were ₹13,947 crore, which is 8% lower than the previous year, due to reduced promotion and marketing spending from ₹2,501 crore in the previous year to ₹1,851 crore in 2023-24.

However, Swiggy with a 43% market share still lagged behind rival Zomato's 57% market share in terms of gross order value (GOV) basis.