Indian startups have already laid off over 6,900 employees in the last four months

Apr 21, 2022

By: BI India Bureau

Indian startups raised $10 billion funding last quarter

Indian startups are leaving quite a mark when it comes to raising capital and increasing their valuation. Indian startups mopped up over $10 billion in funding during the first quarter of 2022, between January and March, according to Venture Intelligence. This is a nearly 50 percent spike from the $5.7 billion they raised in the same period last year.

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6,900 employees laid off

After years of cash burning, the companies are now looking to tidy up their financial statements. According to Business Insider’s calculations, Indian startups have let go of over 6,900 employees. This also includes the 3,000 employees Better.com laid off from India and US as the segregation of Indian employees is not public.

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Better.com (India) | 3,000

US-based digital mortgage company Better.com in March 2022 asked more than 3,000 employees from its US and India office to leave their position, according to a New York Times report. This represents nearly one-third of its employee base of over 9,000 in the two regions. The number of employees laid off specifically from India is not yet clear.

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Ola | 2,100

Riding hailing giant Ola — which has been experimenting with the quick commerce businesses for a while now — has reportedly undergone a massive restructuring in this new vertical, leaving 2,100 contract workers out of job. According to an Economic Times report citing sources, Ola is scaling down its 200 dark stores and scaling them down further.

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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. Earlier, the company had also laid off 325 part-time workers and educators on its platform, according to Inc42.

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Trell | 300

Lifestyle-focused social commerce platform Trell was reportedly planning to lay off nearly 50 percent of its workforce, or about 300 people, across various offices in India as the company’s cofounder faced a probe order by its board of directors. The company also sold 10 percent stake in devotional and spiritual content company AppsForBharat amid this row.

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Lido Learning | 200

Edtech startup Lido Learning laid off 150-200 employees in February 2022. The company has claimed that the impacted employees were underperforming and were not regular to office. However, sources aware of the development told publications that the severe cash crunch faced by Lido was the main reason for these layoffs.

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Furlenco | 200

Furniture rental startup Furlenco has reportedly laid off 180-200 employees as the company has been scaling down its operations across various metro and non-metro cities such as Pune, Kolkata and Ahmedabad. A bulk of these impacted employees were reportedly from customer support roles including grievance management, scheduling and other operations.

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Meesho | 150

Facebook-backed ecommerce company Meesho has laid off 150 employees from its grocery business, which was restructured and rebranded to Meesho Superstore last month. The company emphasised that the impacted employees have received severance packages and outplacement assistance to secure new opportunities outside the company.

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OkCredit | 40

Bengaluru-based bookkeeping startup OkCredit reportedly laid off around 30-40 employees from backend, tech and engineering teams in February 2022. OkCredit too has confirmed about the layoffs without specifying the number of employees impacted.

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