The body of the founder of India's largest coffee store chain was found Tuesday after an apparent suicide, days after the entrepreneur went missing.

VG Siddharta, the owner of Cafe Coffee Day, was found dead by fishermen by a river in Mangaluru in southwest India's Karnataka State, according to police.

The businessman had left a note to members of the company's board, saying "I gave it my all but today I gave up as I could not take any more pressure from one of the private equity partners forcing me to buy back shares."

The letter, in which Siddharta said he was "succumbing to the situation," suggested that he was under intense pressure from debt and tax officials.

Cafe Coffee Day has more than 1,700 stores across India, and even expanded overseas after being founded by Siddharta in Bangalore in 1996. The company originally took off in India's tech hub after offering customers free internet access with their coffees.

After reports of Siddharta's disappearance emerged, shares in Cafe Coffee Day plummeted by more than 20 percent. The company's board has called for "the support and strength of all our stakeholders," and vowed to continue the business.

According to Bloomberg, Cafe Coffee Day was in more than 950 million U.S. dollars' worth of debt in the latest fiscal year, up by 29 percent from the previous year.

Growing competition in the coffee industry had knocked the chain's growth in recent years, according to local media. An interview from 2016 with Outlook Business saw Siddartha saying Starbucks' entry into the Chinese market gave him "sleepless nights."

While India is a relatively new market for global coffee chains like Starbucks, Cafe Coffee Day is a familiar brand across the country, and has previously opened stores in Europe, Egypt and Malaysia.

Starbucks has less than 200 stores in India, while Chinese brand Luckin announced earlier this week plans to expand in the region.