Investor sued by Zilingo founder for highlighting misuse of money, unexplained salary hikes by CEO Ankiti Bose

Ankiti Bose, co-founder of and ex-CEO of fashion e-commerce startup Zilingo has filed an ₹ 820 crore defamation suit against high-profile angel investor Mahesh Murthy over an old piece of an article authored by Murthy in the March issue of Outlook Business magazine. Bose has sued investor Murthy in the Bombay High Court through law firm Singhania and Co LLP alleging that the article is a “continuation of the three-year-old vendetta” against her. Notably, Murthy had authored an article titled, “From venture capital to victim capital” in March.

In that article, Murthy had taken a strong jibe at various startup founders without naming anyone and held them responsible for the current drop in funding in the country. Following the defamation suit, Murthy on Twitter shared a post and shared two paragraphs of the article and indirectly targeted Bose. Murthy posted the following paras, “Founders take out money.

Some do it legally, and some do not so legally. In my opinion, in either case, taking oodles of money from your company while it is unprofitable is deeply unethical to the investors who funded you. Some who did it illegally are well-known: One lady ran a popular fashion portal and took Sequoia’s money.

She got her firm to pay her lawyer ₹ 70 crore as fees and it is rumoured got a lot of that amount directly back to herself as a cut. She also got her firm to pay a public relations agency ₹ 10 crore a year to have her profile appear as a glamorous CEO type, jetting in business class from one fashion show to another. All this happened while her start-up failed to earn even rs 10 crore of gross income on farcically inflated revenues of ₹ 300 crore while it was valued at over ₹ 8,000 crore”.

Investor Murthy on Sunday tweeted, “I’m in the news. Such fun! Apparently a lady is suing me for $100 million for an old piece which doesn’t refer to her but she insists it does”. Murthy has still not written the name of Ankiti Bose in his latest tweet.

Murthy added, “Given that there are dozens of lady founders in dozens of fashion firms funded by Sequoia & much has happened across many of them, one wonders why. Guilty conscience? Playing the victim? A PR stunt to stay in the news? A new way to raise funding? If you have a guess, do share it”. Murthy was a managing partner at early-stage venture capital firm Seedfund which has backed Redbus, Chumbak, and others.

I’m in the news. Such fun! Apparently a lady is suing me for $100 million for an old piece which doesn’t refer to her but she insists it does. It’s this attached excerpt from an opinion piece commissioned by @OutlookBusiness .

Given that there are dozens of lady founders in dozens… pic. twitter. com/Rs5vT5qS92 — Mahesh Murthy (@maheshmurthy) April 22, 2023 What does Ankiti Bose’s defamation suit say? On the other hand, Bose in her statement has said that Murthy’s article comprises a “litany of lies, distortions, and venomous claims”.

Bose said, ” Murthy’s piece is a continuation of the 3-year-long vendetta against me. This malicious media campaign launched against me has harmed my reputation, caused significant financial losses, and is entirely based on fiction, will not a shred of evidence against me”. “Murthy’s piece only goes to reinforce the sexist attitude and gossipy innuendo that hold back more women founders from achieving their true potential,” the ex-Zilingo co-founder added.

Zilingo’s old controversy: Ankiti Bose and Zilingo have been in the eye of the storm last year. Bose was suspended by Zilingo in 2022 April following a series of allegations about impropriety raised by anonymous whistleblowers. Alleged financial irregularities were discovered during a due diligence process for a new funding round at Bose’s account.

In June 2022, Bose resigned from directorships at holding company Zilingo Pte Ltd as well as its subsidiaries. And in January this year, Zilingo sold off its technology assets and acquired the entity Ncinga Innovations to Zurich-based e-commerce management software company Buyogo AG. EY Corporate Services Pte was appointed by Zilingo as provisional liquidator.

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