Indian startups are trying hard to raise capital and increase their valuation. They mopped up over $10 billion in funding during the first quarter of 2022, between January and March, according to Venture Intelligence. After years of cash crunch, the companies are now looking to tidy up their financial statements.
The recent cash inflows show about a 50% spike from the figure of $5.7 billion recorded last year. Meanwhile, a few thousand employees have been laid off across several sectors-that does not include those from ‘better. com’, since the company has not segregated the 3000 laid off employees belonging to the US and India.
Let us look at the startups that have sent employees for a permanent holiday!
- Better.com:It is a US-based digital mortgage company that has laid off nearly one-third of its 9,000 employee base from both the US and India.
- Ola: Riding giant ola-which has been in quick commerce for a long while now, has undergone a massive restructuring of its personnel, as it laid off 2,100 contract workers. According to an Economics Times report, Ola is closing its 200 retail outlets and scaling them down further.
According to Business Insider’s calculations, Indian startups have let go of over 5,700 #employees. This does not include the 3,000 employees https://t.co/ObQZ61r8Sr laid off from India and US as the segregation of Indian employees is not public.#startups pic.twitter.com/KlHJ5IfH7I
— Business Insider India🇮🇳 (@BiIndia) April 21, 2022
- Unacademy: The edtech company has fired 600 employees as it aims to turn profitable by end of the year. Although the company said that the figure makes up only 10% of its total workforce, it has already laid off 325 part-time workers and educators earlier.
- Trell: Lifestyle-based social commerce startup Trell has planned to fire 300 of its employees-which makes up 50% of its workforce in India. The company also sold one percent of its stake to AppsForBharat(a spiritual content company) after its Co-Founder faced a probe by the Board of Directors.
- Lido: Edtech startup Lido has fired 150-200 employees in February 2022. The company has said that they were not committed to their work, underperforming, and irregular. However, other sources have claimed that the layoffs were made due to the cash crunch faced by Lido.
Unacademy | 925 #Unacademy has laid off as many as 600 #employees since February as it looks to turn profitable by the end of this year, the edtech company had confirmed on April 7. The company noted that this makes up only 10 percent of its total workforce of 6,000.#startups pic.twitter.com/RoIrRlzOwd
— Business Insider India🇮🇳 (@BiIndia) April 21, 2022
- Furlenco: The furniture startup has laid off about 180-200 employees and scaled down its operations in major cities like Kolkata, Ahmedabad, and Pune. The majority of laid-off employees belonged to grievance management, scheduling operations, and customer support roles.
- Meesho-The facebook backed grocery startup had recently restructured and rebranded itself as Meesho Superstore. The company has fired 150 employees. The company said that the laid-off employees have received a severance package and outplacement assistance so that they can explore opportunities outside the company.
- OkCredit: Bengaluru-based book-keeping startup has laid off about 40 employees mainly from backend, engineering, and technology teams in February 2022. The company has confirmed the number of layoffs without mentioning the number of employees impacted.
References: BusinessInsider, Twitter
Featured Image source: Twitter
