Grofers CTO Varun Khurana quits

Grofers India chief technology officer Varun Khurana has quit the company after less than a year with the hyperlocal grocery and fresh food delivery startup.

Grofers CEO Albinder Dhindsa confirmed the development to VCCircle and said the company hasn't yet decided on a replacement.

The reason behind Khurana's departure from Gurgaon-based Locodel Solutions Pvt Ltd, which runs Grofers, couldn't be ascertained.

The move was first reported by The Economic Times.

Khurana's resignation comes just a month after the two-year-old startup raised $120 million (nearly Rs 800 crore) in funding led by Japanese internet conglomerate SoftBank Corp. Existing investors Apoletto Managers, Tiger Global Management and Sequoia Capital also participated in this round of funding.

Prior to joining Grofers, the IIT-Delhi alumnus Khurana co-founded Mygreenbox -- a smartphone-based grocery delivery platform -- that was acquired by Grofers in April this year. He also worked with Wirkle Technologies, which was acquired by Silicon Valley-based Location Labs.

An angel investor, Khurana has backed companies such as IndiaCollegeSearch.com, getShifu.com and Aurus Networks.

Founded by Saurabh Kumar and Dhindsa in 2013, Grofers allows users to order products ranging from grocery to pet supplies and electronic products online. Grofers, which operates on a marketplace model, claims it fulfills about 30,000 orders daily.

The startup had raised $35 million (Rs 218 crore then) from Tiger Global Management and Sequoia Capital in August. It recently expanded its talent pool by acqui-hiring Bangalore-based food delivery app SpoonJoy and B2B logistics startup Townrush.

Other companies that have seen their tech chiefs leaving this year include Flipkart, Snapdeal, JustDial and MakeMyTrip. In February, Snapdeal CTO Amitabh Misra resigned from the e-commerce firm. Flipkart CTO Amod Malviya put in his papers in July. Sharat Singh, the CTO of MakeMyTrip, quit in October while JustDial CTO Sandipan Chattopadhyay resigned last month.