new delhi, July 30 -- Eternal, formerly known as Zomato, more than doubled its workforce in FY25 as the company expanded its quick commerce business, Blinkit, and the going-out vertical District. Most of the hiring has gone into Blinkit, and District- verticals that are capital-and labour-intensive, requiring last-mile delivery staff, dark store operators, and local sales teams, according to the company's annual report for FY25. Doubling a workforce in a single year is rare even in high-growth sectors and usually reflects hyper-scaling driven by new funding, expansion bets, or pre-IPO momentum, said Vivek Mehta, partner at ABC Consultants. "It is seen in organisations in hypergrowth phase (startup scaling), post-funding rounds, pre-IPO preparations and with large project wins," said Mehta. "They're seeing strong traction in tier 2 and tier 3 markets, where overall costs-including employment costs - are significantly lower," said Satish Meena, co-founder, Datum Intelligence. Eternal does not disclose headcount by vertical. In consumer-tech sectors, annual workforce growth typically ranges between 20% and 35%; anything above 80-90% signals hyper-scaling, common among venture-funded startups post-capital infusion, quick-commerce platforms expanding dark stores, or roll-up models acquiring teams via staffing networks, said Kartik Narayan, CEO at TeamLease Services Ltd. According to exchange filings, Blinkit operated 1,007 dark stores as of 31 December 2024. Eternal had earmarked Rs.2,137 crore for dark stores and related operations, but utilised only Rs.181 crore by 31 March 2025 - leaving Rs.1,956 crore parked in deposits and securities, as per the annual report. In the April-June quarter, Blinkit came close to matching the net order value of Eternal's core food delivery business, Zomato. Blinkit contributed nearly Rs.10,000 crore of Eternal's total Rs.20,183 crore net order value (excluding discounts). "In a sector like this, which blends consumer and tech, it involves significant last-mile and round-the-clock operations, which also influences the workforce composition," said Kamal Karanth, CoFounder at Xpheno, a specialist staffing company....