Swiggy elevates Phani Kishan as co-founder, CEO calls him his 'fixer and go-to guy'

Food delivery unicorn Swiggy has elevated Phani Kishan Addepalli, an earlier employee of the startup and its vice-president for strategy and investments, to co-founder's role. With this, Phani will join original co-founders Nandan Reddy and Sriharsha Majety.

Kishan has been part of the food tech platform for over six years. "Phani joined us very early on in 2015 and has been my fixer and go-to guy for many important problems for as long as I can remember. Over these 6 years, he’s probably had the record for setting up multiple high leverage functions from the ground up," Majety said in a blog post.

Pointing out the reason why he is excited about Kishan's elevation, Majety said, "Phani role-models the Swiggy culture and values, and lives by them on a daily basis… as if he knows no other way to operate."

The Swiggy CEO said that the new co-founder has been part of the core team that helped shape the company's values. "His energy, can-do attitude and founder mentality are all goal-worthy for any Swiggster to succeed here and make a huge impact in the company’s future," he added.

"Phani will now also be joining the M-team and will be even more closely involved in helping shape the company’s future on our dream to build India’s most loved customer brand and an enduring institution," Majety said.

This move comes at a time when Swiggy's Chief Operating Officer (COO) Vivek Sunder will be leaving the startup. 

The food delivery platform was co-founded by Majety, Reddy and Rahul Jaimini in 2014. Last year, Jaimini left the company to pursue another start up Pesto Tech.

$450 million investment from SoftBank

Swiggy is close to sealing a $450 million investment from SoftBank, if this happens the valuation of Swiggy will be close to $5.5 billion. The food tech unicorn recent got funding of $800 million in the series J round which saw investments from Amansa, Falcon Edge, Carmignac, Think Investments and Goldman Sachs.