Top-Level Exits Mar Urban Ladder

Four senior executives of online furniture brand Urban Ladder have quit in the last two months, continuing the series of high-profile exits from the company, two people privy to the development told BloombergQuint.

The executives include: Rushabh Sanghavi, vice-president, category and sourcing, Nikhil Ramprakash, vice-president, sales and online marketing, Parag Shah, vice-president, fitouts, urban interiors and alliances, and chief marketing officer Sanjay Gupta, one of the persons quoted above added on the condition of anonymity.

Sanghavi and Ramprakash had joined Urban Ladder in 2012, while Shah joined in January 2015 from Pipavav Defence and Offshore Engineering Co. Ltd. Gupta came in from Marico Ltd. in February 2016.

An Urban Ladder spokesperson declined to comment.

The high profile exits also come at a time when the Bengaluru-based company plans to roll out smaller retail stores. The firm is likely to open its first offline retail store in Bengaluru in June and is also mulling partnerships with large format stores.

Anuj Roy, senior partner at executive search firm Transearch, which lists companies like Aditya Birla Group, PepsiCo and Microsoft Inc. as its clients says the shift from a technology platform to a brand could be one of the reasons for the high level exits .

“There are now creating Urban Ladder brand of furniture and wants to sell offline and through Amazon or other e-commerce websites rather than building their own platform. Once you focus on brand, your focus on technology reduces,” Roy added.

High profile exits have become a common occurrence for Urban Ladder, with as many as nine executives exiting the company in the last 12 months.

Last year Urban Ladder saw five of its senior level executives bidding adieu to the company. Chief technology officer Apurva Dalal joined Uber in August. Vice-president, Karthikeya Misra quit in November to join as director at WalmartLabs India and Prithvi Raj Tejavath, vice-president, category management and growth, moved on to start his own venture Upwardly in June.

Director of brand management, Vishwanath V, and director of sales Suman Punuru also quit the company last year.

Urban Ladder had last raised $15 million in February from Kalaari Capital, SAIF Partners, Steadview Capital and Sequoia. So far, the startup has raised $92.2 million, according to data cited by Crunchbase, which aggregates information on startups.

Top Level Exits

2017 has already seen a fair share of senior level executives quitting Indian startups.

In February Jasper Infotech, Snapdeal's parent firm, witnessed its third senior-level exit in two months, as FreeCharge's chief executive officer Govind Raj quit the company. Rajiv Bansal who had left Infosys Ltd. to join the cab aggregator, also put in his papers in February after spending just over an year at the company. Ola's Chief Marketing officer Raghuvesh Sarup also quit the company.

Myntra co-founder Ashutosh Lawania, who was heading supply chain at Jabong, also quit in February to start his own venture.