Zilingo Sacks Co-Founder Ankiti Bose: Who Is She?

Zilingo began to make waves in 2018 following strong growth on the platform, with 27,000 merchants in 15 regions signing on. This led to its young founders making it to the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia list.

In 2019, it really burst on to the scene, raising $226 million from investors, including Bose’s former employee Sequoia Capital, Singaporean sovereign investment fund Temasek and Burda Principal. The company was valued at $970 million at the time, according to Forbes.

But with growth being targeted by the company following discussions between Bose and Sequoia in 2018, things soon began to go off the rails. The first problem came from the B2C business, into which money was poured without proper planning, according to an investigation by Inc42.

Bose was heavily involved in the B2C push, including attempts to get into the US market with Zilingo’s vendors’ products, where a great deal of money was spent to little avail thanks to the shuttering of the company’s consumer-facing operations.

According to Inc42, it was here that allegations of misuse of funds began to appear as well, according to sources in Zilingo, including for personal flight tickets, luxury item purchases, and contracts with a branding agency.

Sources close to Bose denied the allegations to Inc42 and argued that she had even paid for company expenses from her own finances.