Phani Kishan Adepalli, who has been an employee at Swiggy since 2015 as its vice president of strategy and investment, is now positioned as the food tech unicorn's Co-founder, which was announced in a blog post by Sriharsha Majety.

The newly promoted Co-founder, had been driving the food tech platform for six years as its general manager of new initiatives and had been playing many roles including Chief of Staff to the CEO for almost a year in 2017. Prior to joining Swiggy, Kishan had spent his career for over two years at Boston Consulting Group, according to his LinkedIn profile.

“Phani has been my fixer and go-to guy for many important problems for as long as I can remember, having joined us very early in 2015. Over the last six years, he's probably set a new record for establishing many high-leverage functions from the ground up”, Majety wrote in the blog post.

Addepalli will now join Swiggy's executive team and will play a larger role in shaping the company's future, wrote Majety.

This comes in weeks after Vivek Sunder, the food tech unicorn’s Chief Operating Officer, who exited the company after three years with the founder Majety taking up his responsibilities, according to CIO Insider.

Swiggy's co-founder and previous chief technology officer (CTO) Jaimini left from the online delivery unicorn in May of last year to co-found Pesto Tech, a career accelerator firm. However, Jaimini continues to stay as the food tech unicorn’s shareholder and board member.

As Majety wrote to employees, he expressed that, “I've always been amazed by Phani's ability to take on brand-new charters and operate from the ground up, to go out and perform admirably. His approach to developing new and long-lasting organizational capacities has always been a force multiplier for us, and I can't wait to watch him take on new challenges in the years ahead to develop even more capabilities”.

Falcon Edge Capital, Amansa Capital, Think Investments, Carmignac, and Goldman Sachs joined as new investors in the food tech unicorn's latest Series J round of funding in April, raising $800 million.
The food tech unicorn was valued at over $5 billion in the financing. It is also in the process of raising another $450 million from Japanese corporation Softbank, which will value the company at $5.5 billion.