Go big or go home, Zilingo edition

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The prevailing mantra among startups is “fail fast.” In short, go big or go home because staying in place is basically moving backwards. And when companies raise gigantic rounds of funding, they’re always expected to use it.

As a near-unicorn, Zilingo has raised hundreds of millions in venture funding from blue chip investors. We looked into the business-to-business fashion ecommerce firm’s most recent financials for the financial year ending March 31, 2019, and lo and behold, it grew big – and lost big.

Zilingo’s marketing and advertising spending was particularly substantial, exceeding even its total revenue.

But things have changed dramatically for the company since then. As the Covid-19 pandemic turned its core fashion category into a non-essential business, Zilingo had to make some hard adjustments. Chief operating officer Aadi Vaidya called 2020 “the hardest year” of his career in a LinkedIn post.

Times may be tough, but they don’t last. It’s tough people – and companies – that do. Is Zilingo one of them? That remains to be seen.

— Putra Muskita, journalist at Tech in Asia

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