Bengaluru-based business-to-business (B2B) ecommerce unicorn has laid off 300-350 on-roll employees and a large chunk of its contractual employees to pursue profitability. Multiple sources claim that the total layoff numbers have exceeded over 1000. However, a company spokesperson denied to comment anything on the figures, The Economic Times (ET) reported.
The move came to light after the company raised $120 million by issuing convertible notes for the second time in the year. Earlier in January, Udaan raised $225 million following the same process.
“As we move forward in our journey towards making Udaan a profitable company, the efficiency enhancement drive and the evolution in business model has created some redundancies in the system, with some roles no longer required. As a responsible organisation, we are working towards providing all requisite support to the impacted employees,” the company said in a statement.
Udaan is laying off its employees for the second time this year. Earlier in June, the firm handed over pink slips to 180-200 on-roll employees which was 5 per cent of the company’s entire bandwidth at that time. The Lightspeed Venture Partner-backed Indian ecommerce giant also terminated contracts of 700-800 off-role staff back then.
Founded in 2016 by Vaibhav Gupta, Sujeet Kumar, and Amod Malviya, Udaan achieved its unicorn status in 2018. The firm also reported a 6X jump in its revenue in the fiscal year 2021, taking it to Rs 5,919 crore from Rs 978 crore in FY 20.
Udaan has now joined the list of Indian start-ups that laid off their employees at the time of a so-called funding winter. This includes edtech unicorn BYJU’s which announced the rationalisation of 5 per cent of its 50,000-strong employee bandwidth in coming months. Multiple other start-ups like Unacademy and Vedantu also reduced their employee numbers this year.