Ambareesh Murty, the CEO of furniture and home décor retailer Pepperfry, died of a cardiac arrest on August 8, 2023, while on a bike trip in Ladakh. He was 51 years old.
Murty was a keen biker and had been planning the trip to Ladakh for several months. He was accompanied by a group of friends on the trip. On the morning of August 8, Murty was riding his bike when he suffered a cardiac arrest.
Pepperfry's board of directors said, "We are deeply saddened by the loss of our beloved CEO Ambareesh Murty. Feeling sad to inform you that my friend, mentor and brother @AmbareeshMurty is no more. We lost him yesterday night to a cardiac arrest. Pay tribute to my friend and for strength to his family and his dear ones," Shah wrote on Twitter.
I am shocked and saddened by the news of Ambareesh Murty's passing. It is difficult enough to be an entrepreneur, but it is even more difficult to build a successful brand in a category like furniture. Ambareesh did both and he did it with great success.
Ambareesh Murty graduated from IIT Calcutta in 1996 and from the Delhi College of Engineering in 1994. On his X profile, he described himself as a "closet sociopath" and said that he loved history and epic fantasies.
Ambareesh Murty's entrepreneurial journey began in the early 1990s when he started a small business called Tutors' Bureau that connected tutors with school students. In 2020, Murty's company, Pepperfry, was worth $500 million.
It had raised $244 million in investment over eight funding rounds, with investors including Goldman Sachs and Bertelsmann India Investments.