Ankiti Bose is a popular name in the Indian startup culture. As the former CEO of Zilingo, she achieved remarkable success. However, she also became one of the few Indian entrepreneurs to be ousted from their own company despite making it big.
Ankiti Bose was born in Dehradun and went to Cambridge School in Mumbai. Later, she graduated from St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai. After college, she worked for big companies like McKenzie & Company and Sequoia Capital. While exploring the local market in Bangalore, she noticed that many small shopkeepers needed to get online. This realisation led her to quit her job as an investment analyst at Sequoia Capital and start her own company, Zilingo.
Ankiti, along with her friend Dhruv Kapoor, launched the technology and commerce platform Zilingo. By 2019, the company’s market value had soared to Rs 7,000 crore. Her achievements led to her recognition in Forbes Asia’s 30 under 30 list in 2018, as well as inclusion in Fortune’s 40 under 40 and Bloomberg’s Top 50 lists in 2019.
However, in 2022, Ankiti was ousted from her position as CEO of Zilingo. Mahesh Murthy, an investor in the company, went as far as filing a case against Ankiti Bose to reclaim Rs 738 crore. The company accused her of financial misrepresentation and mismanagement.
According to reports, she hiked her salary tenfold without board approval. The reports added that around Rs 83 crore was disbursed without proper documentation. As a result, the company’s investors filed a lawsuit amounting to over Rs 700 crore based on these allegations.
As per reports, between 2017 and 2019, Ankiti allegedly increased not only her salary but those of her co-founder Dhruv Kapoor and Chief Operating Officer Aadi Vaidya, by 10 times, 3 times and 7 times, respectively. According to reports, her salary surged from SGD 5,500 in 2017 to SGD 58,900 in 2019.
According to Bloomberg, Ankiti Bose was suspended as CEO on March 31, 2022. Then, on May 20, 2022, she was officially terminated from her position at Zilingo.
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