Drip Capital, an Indian trade financing start-up with headquarters in Mumbai and California, laid off around 20 per cent of its workforce in November 2022, Inc42 reported.
The layoffs were part of a restructuring exercise affecting teams across the business, with the tech, engineering and sales departments suffering the most significant impact. The company did not provide an explanation for the layoffs, which affected over 75 employees.
Drip Capital's chief executive officer, Pushkar Mukewar, announced the business restructuring plan during a town hall meeting in mid-November, with the affected employees receiving separate emails asking them to resign within hours.
The layoffs caused confusion among staff, as in September 2022, the company had informed them that the business was performing well. Although most of the affected employees were from Indian teams, some staff in the US and Mexico also lost their jobs. Drip Capital offered severance pay equal to two months' salary to those impacted by the layoffs and the final payments were cleared within 15 days.
Drip Capital, founded in 2016 by Mukewar and Neil Kothari, offers digitised trade financing solutions to small and medium businesses in India, the US and Mexico. The layoffs came a year after the company raised $175 million in funding in October 2021, including a $40 million Series C investment and $135 million in warehouse debt facilities. TI Platform, Accel, Sequoia, Wing VC and Irongrey are among the investors in the fintech start-up.
