Leadership changes have surged in India’s startup ecosystem in 2025, with more than 70 firms across early-stage, growth-stage, and newly listed categories experiencing significant transitions. This included new CEO appointments, co-founders moving on, transitioning to new roles, or advancing to top leadership positions. According to data gathered from various sources, Indian startups appointed 50 new CEOs in 2025, comprising 21 internal promotions, 12 key executives elevated to co-founder roles, alongside 35 leaders who left their positions. In comparison, 2024 saw 46 leadership changes, consisting of 27 CEO appointments, three co-founder promotions, and 16 resignations. Startups such as Navi Technologies, Angel One, Globalbees, Livspace, Rebel Foods, Dunzo, PharmEasy, Unacademy, and boAt made notable alterations to their senior leadership this year. The changes extended to publicly listed companies like Eternal, EaseMyTrip, Infibeam Avenues, Paytm Payments Bank, Mobikwik, and PaisaBazaar.
Highlights
CEOs Appointed in 2025
In 2025, 50 new chief executive officers (CEOs) were appointed, with 21 executives raised to the CEO position. Lendingkart brought in former DBS Bank MD Prashant Joshi as CEO shortly after Temasek-backed Fullerton Financial Holdings acquired a majority stake in the lending technology startup. Navi appointed Rajiv Naresh as its CEO and Abhishek Dwivedi as CEO of Navi Finserv, following Sachin Bansal’s transition to Executive Chairman of the Navi Group. Livspace promoted COO Ramakant Sharma to CEO. Angel One appointed Ambarish Kenghe as Group CEO, while Thyrocare’s MD and CEO Rahul Guha assumed the role of CEO at API Holdings, the parent company of PharmEasy, after Siddharth Shah’s departure. Foodtech unicorn Rebel Foods appointed Ankush Grover as CEO after Jaydeep Barman took on the role of Chairman. Meanwhile, Zoho elevated co-founder Shailesh Kumar Davey to CEO, with Sridhar Vembu stepping back to become chief scientist.
Co-founders Elevated in 2025
Around nine Indian startups welcomed key executives into co-founder positions in 2025, acknowledging their essential roles in the companies’ growth journeys. Treebo Hospitality Ventures named Hardin Goyal as Founding Partner after a decade with the firm. The corporate health benefits platform ekincare elevated Somak Ray, vice president of operations, to co-founder, while deep-tech startup Enlog appointed its CTO Ayush Gupta as co-founder. The edtech company Masai also broadened its leadership by naming Keshav Misra as co-founder and COO, and elevating Aman Vats and Ankit Agrawal to co-founder roles.
Co-founders and CEOs Who Stepped Down
Apart from new appointments and promotions, approximately 15 co-founders left their roles to either embark on their own ventures or join different firms in 2025. Prominent departures included BluSmart founders Anmol Singh Jaggi and Puneet Singh Jaggi, who exited following a fraud case involving their promoter firm, Gensol Engineering. Online pharmacy PharmEasy’s co-founders Dharmil Sheth, Dhaval Shah, Hardik Dedhia, and Harsh Parekh left to start a home improvement venture titled All Home. Ishwar Sridharan, co-founder and COO of cloud telephony and customer engagement firm Exotel, stepped down after 14 years with the organisation. Recently, Nitin Jain, co-founder and CBO of the B2B ecommerce platform OfBusiness, resigned to initiate a new project. Romil Jain, co-founder and former CTO of SaaS startup Increff, also departed the company, while Freshworks co-founder Girish Mathrubootham left to concentrate on the Together Fund.
Several prominent CEOs stepped down during the year. Sachin Bansal transitioned from CEO of Navi Technologies and Navi Finserv to Executive Chairman of the Navi Group, while EaseMyTrip’s CEO, Nishant Pitti, resigned for personal reasons. GlobalBees CEO Nitin Agarwal also departed, along with Varun Sridhar, CEO of Paytm Services, following a five-year tenure. Other exits included Abha Maheshwari of Allen Digital, Paytm Payments Bank MD and CEO Nakul Jain, and the CEO of conversational AI platform Haptik, among others.
