Zepto: How Two 17-Year-Olds Built India's Largest Seller Of Fruits and Vegetables

Palicha and co-founder Kaivalya began working on the idea at 17, after COVID brought them back to Mumbai. They started by taking grocery requests in a WhatsApp group and delivering for neighbors, then built an app called Kirana Cart.

The founders waited for evidence before deciding to leave their college plans: retention, a working product, about 10,000 orders a day, and investor interest. Doorstep conversations showed customers wanted better speed, quality, selection, and prices. Moving stock into a mini warehouse, first in Kaivalya’s apartment, gave them more control and brought three to four times the volume of other neighborhoods.

Palicha says the team worked backward from the experience customers wanted, including 10-minute delivery, and then asked how to make it possible at scale. The dark-store model also brought unexpected operating benefits: higher warehouse volume lowered costs. He describes customer delight as the starting point for financial value.

Palicha characterizes Zepto as a grocery and logistics business, with software supporting store design, replenishment, trucking, and operations. He says the company sources millions of fruit and vegetable units per week and sells millions of units daily on its platform. Its vision is to build urban grocery infrastructure across India’s top 40 to 50 cities.

Palicha describes machine learning forecasts that handle millions of units daily and help the supply chain dispatch faster. AI tools also support ad keyword selection and return-on-ad-spend predictions. He credits experienced leaders around him with helping him learn, and recommends asking questions and learning from people with deeper expertise.