After a troublesome 2022, when the Meta stock hit a low of $90, the company has bounced back strongly, surging as much as 271% on the US stock exchange this year, as of December 15. 

While the tech giant saw a revival on the back of stronger-than-expected financial results for the company’s second quarter of 2023, the exceptional performance of the company was anchored in various tailwinds, including a suitable growth environment in the home country, improving market sentiment, and aggressive cost-cutting, just to count a few.

However, in stark contrast, the company’s India stay was not very comfortable during the year, as it had its fair share of fires to douse on the regulatory front. 

While regulatory bottlenecks were one of the recurring peeves for Meta’s operations in the country, the social media major was time and again cornered by Indian courts and law enforcement agencies for failing to keep a check on notorious elements, such as deepfakes and misinformation, doing rounds on the platform.

During the year, Indian authorities also unearthed an alleged INR 10,000 tax fraud involving Facebook sellers. Meanwhile, weak global cues forced Meta to cut corners, resulting in an undisclosed number of mass layoffs at its India office. 

Amid all this, the company also grabbed headlines after some of its shareholders mounted an offensive for its alleged bias in India operations. 

Notwithstanding the challenges, 2023 also turned out to be the year during which Meta kicked into motion a full-scale monetisation plan with Meta verified and a slew of offerings for merchants. The Indian arm continued to rake in hefty revenues while the ad business saw considerable growth in the country. 

However, despite gaining a huge response at the outset, its much-touted new launch ‘Threads’ turned out to be a dud. For the uninitiated, Threads is Meta’s answer to X and is focussed on textual conversations, rather than visual media. 

As we approach the end of 2023, let’s steal a glance at the journey of the social media juggernaut in India this year.

Meta’s Sabre-Rattling With The Govt Continued In 2023

The Mark Zuckerberg-led company found itself roiling in a bevy of regulatory challenges throughout the year. As the Centre undertook a flurry of reforms in the form of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act and the new IT Rules, Meta found itself burdened with additional compliance requirements and mandates.

The adverse regulations also made the company liable for hefty fines and opened Meta to potential lawsuits if users’ grievances went unresolved. With little wriggle room under the new laws, the fear of losing safe harbour protections sent alarm bells ringing for the social media behemoth. 

“While the exact impact of the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act is yet to be seen, there might be some implications on the storage and transfer of data of Indian subjects.  This might have more of an implication for Meta as their tech implementation might have to significantly change,” identity verification platform IDfy’s chief executive officer (CEO) Ashok Hariharan told Inc42.

What also proved to be a major headache for the company were the large number of content take-down requests by the Indian government. The country emerged as the second biggest source of government requests to Meta in the first half of 2023, second only to the US. 

Between January and June 2023, Indian authorities issued 70,612 requests, of which 63,586 were legal process requests while the remaining were ‘emergency disclosure requests’. 

Curiously, Meta’s worst hit arm in India appeared to be WhatsApp, which found itself at the centre of many regulations. A Competition Commission of India (CCI ) probe into WhatsApp’s 2021 privacy policy case continued to be in limbo. 

As if these issues were not enough, generative AI became a cause of concern for Meta. The deepfake controversy, involving actor Rashmika Mandanna, saw Facebook at the centre of enforcement action as authorities issued notices to the company to act on synthetic content and reveal information about the origins of the post. 

A Long List Of Troubles For Meta India

Amid a tussle with government authorities, Meta also found itself in the middle of other controversies that grabbed negative headlines throughout the year. 

A case in point is the consultation paper floated by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), which explored the idea of bringing OTT communication apps under the regulatory ambit and selective banning of such apps. 

The aftermath triggered a full-blown war with telcos and startups as telecom operators pitched for a revenue-sharing framework with OTT platforms based on network traffic as a parameter. The proposed move directly strikes at the heart of Meta as it consumes a major chunk of telecom bandwidth domestically. 

Making matters worse was the surge in pesky job calls to WhatsApp’s India users from international mobile numbers. The controversy made the government crack its whip on Meta yet again. Subsequently, 66,000 WhatsApp accounts and 8 Lakh payment wallets were deactivated.

WhatsApp also continued to face outages in the country. Meanwhile, one of the major issues that shook Meta in India came from an unlikely place – its own shareholders. Some of the company’s stakeholders moved a proposal to probe alleged biases in Meta’s India operations and sought an assessment of the same. 

While the proposal was eventually vetoed, this added a new dimension to the already reported allegations that Meta favoured the ruling party. 

Meta’s Sob Story Of Leadership Exodus & Layoffs 

One of the biggest issues that gripped Meta India during the year was layoffs, as the company reportedly fired 400-450 employees in the country.

Even senior executives were not spared by the company as part of its restructuring drive. The company’s director of marketing, Avinash Pant, and director and head of media partnerships, Saket Jha Saurabh, were unceremoniously shown the exits as part of the exercise.

Curiously, just before the layoffs commenced, director and head of partnerships, Manish Chopra, put in his papers.

Meta Ramps Up India Push

Amid all these, the company undertook a slew of new launches in the country as it began to vociferously monetise its offerings. Following the footsteps of its peer X (formerly Twitter), Meta began rolling out its ‘Meta Verified’ service in India in June 2023 to build alternative revenue streams in the country.

It also announced a slew of business-focussed features on WhatsApp to tap into the B2B ecosystem.

On the financial front, Meta India continued to witness healthy growth, although the economic downturn slowed down the momentum. The Indian arm of social media major, Facebook India Online Services, recorded a net profit of INR 352 Cr in FY23, up 19% year-on-year (YoY), against gross advertisement revenue of INR 18,308 Cr, up 13% YoY.

To fuel its operations and build goodwill with the Centre, the company also announced several partnerships and accelerator initiatives with the government to mentor Indian startups, especially in emerging areas such as mixed and extended reality.

Meta In 2024: Gazing Into The Crystal Ball

With more digital laws expected to be promulgated in India in 2024, the company could be headed down a rough road as it looks to balance growth with regulations.

“If GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) repercussions are anything to go by, India and Indian laws might have similar implications for Meta.  A case in point being the DPDP Act which, just like GDPR, has a requirement on the use of data from minors. Given that there are roughly 500 Mn Indians below the age of 18, it opens up a lot of exposure for Meta if they’re not compliant with the new law,” added IDfy’s Ashok Hariharan.

Meanwhile, emerging challenges such as GenAI could put a spanner in the works for the company even as compliance demands surge from authorities.

Notwithstanding this, India continues to be one of the biggest markets for Meta globally, accounting for more than 1 Bn users across three apps — Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. 

Walking on a regulatory tightrope in India, Meta’s India journey so far this year has been both bitter and sweet. Now, with global headwinds expected to ease and consumption likely to surge next year, Meta could put its Indian ambitions in full throttle in 2024. 

The post On A Regulatory Tightrope: Here Is How Meta India’s Odyssey Unfolded In 2023 appeared first on Inc42 Media.

As we edge closer to 2024, Indian startups are navigating through a transformational era marked by a global funding slowdown. The path to success isn’t about riding the wave — it’s about creating your own.

With a firm gaze on the horizon, here’s a pragmatic strategy for Indian entrepreneurs aiming to chart a course to triumph in the coming year.

Embrace Pragmatic Innovation

Innovation is the cornerstone of a startup’s ethos, but in 2024, it’s imperative that this innovation is pragmatic. Innovate with purpose and clarity to address genuine market gaps.

Startups that tailor their innovation to solve concrete problems will stand out to investors and build a dedicated user base.

Strategise For Sustainability

In an era of cautious capital, the startups that demonstrate sustainable growth and prudent financial stewardship will attract the right kind of attention.

Plan with an eye on long-term viability — profitability isn’t just an objective; it’s a necessity for securing investment and ensuring survival.

Data-Driven Decisions

With market volatility, data remains the most reliable source of truth. Let 2024 be the year where every strategic move is backed by solid data — focusing on metrics that directly correlate with your business health and customer satisfaction.

Lean Operations, Maximum Impact

Lean is in. Efficient, nimble operations that maximise output while minimising waste will be the gold standard in 2024.

Embrace technologies and methodologies that enhance productivity and ensure that every resource is optimised.

Foster a Resilient Culture

Culture will dictate resilience. Invest in building a team that’s flexible, innovative, and deeply connected to your startup’s mission.

A resilient culture attracts talent, fosters innovation, and sustains you through economic headwinds.

Your 2024 Roadmap: A 5-Point Checklist

• Define Your Value Proposition: Sharpen the articulation of what sets your startup apart. Your value proposition should resonate with your audience and clearly communicate the unique benefits of your product or service.
• Prioritise Profitable Growth: Craft a business model that balances growth with profitability. This should involve optimising your cost structure and focusing on revenue streams that promise long-term returns.
• Cultivate Data-Driven Culture: Foster a culture where decisions are made on insights derived from data, not intuition. Ensure that your team understands and utilises data to drive the startup forward.
• Adapt to Market Dynamics: Stay agile and be prepared to pivot strategies as market conditions change. Adaptability will be crucial in responding to new opportunities and challenges.
• Invest in Talent: Align your hiring strategy with your growth ambitions. Look for individuals who are not just skilled but also adaptable and capable of thriving in a dynamic startup environment.

In Conclusion

The upcoming year presents a unique set of challenges and opportunities for Indian startups. The startups that will rise to the top in 2024 will be those that have ingrained a culture of innovation, strategic sustainability, and operational agility into their DNA. 

The future belongs to those who can navigate the complexities of the market with a flexible, data-driven approach, delivering value that resonates with customers and sustains the business through every cycle.

The post Unlocking Startup Success In 2024: Strategies, Statistics, And Plannings appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Indian new-age tech stocks witnessed a revival this week, helped by the bull run in the broader market.

Thirteen out of the 19 new-age tech stocks under Inc42’s coverage gained in a range of 1% to 15% this week. Tracxn Technologies emerged as the biggest gainer, with its shares rising 14.8% during the week.

Yudiz, Yatra, Nazara Technologies, RateGain, Zaggle, and Zomato were among the other stocks which witnessed a northbound movement. Meanwhile, RateGain has now almost touched $1 Bn in market capitalisation following this week’s surge of almost 7%.

On the other hand, Paytm continued its slump, falling over 7% this week. Delhivery also declined a little over 7%, while PB Fintech and Fino Payments Bank fell over 3% each this week.

ideaForge and MapmyIndia declined 0.6% and 1.3%, respectively.

In the broader market, benchmark indices Sensex gained 2.4% to end the week at 71,483.75 while Nifty50 rose 2.3% to 21,456.65.

Prashanth Tapse, senior VP (research) at Mehta Equities, said, “There is a lot of enthusiasm amongst the investors, especially foreign investors, who are pumping in funds into domestic equities over the past few weeks post the state election results. Political stability and hopes of continuation of reforms going ahead, coupled with the US Fed’s dovish stance on rates, falling bond yields and sliding crude oil prices, has improved the sentiment.” 

However, Tapse believes that the benchmark indices could consolidate in the near term as they are in the overbought zone on the technical charts. 

Dr. Joseph Thomas, head of research at Emkay Wealth Management, also said that some consolidation around the current levels is expected in the near term. 

Now, let’s take a look at the performance of some of the major new-age tech stocks this week.

The total market capitalisation of the 19 new-age tech stocks under Inc42’s coverage stood at $38.48 Bn at the end of this week as against $38.35 Bn last week.

SoftBank Dumps PB Fintech Shares

After selling stakes in Zomato last week and Delhivery last month, SoftBank offloaded a significant portion of its remaining stake in the fintech major PB Fintech.

SoftBank’s SVF Python II (Cayman) Limited offloaded 2.53% of its stake, involving 1.14 Cr shares, in PB Fintech in multiple block deals worth a cumulative INR 913.7 Cr.

While many institutional investors, including Societe Generale, HDFC Mutual Fund, Goldman Sachs (Singapore) Pte, and ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company Limited, lapped up the offloaded shares, shares of PB Fintech fell 2.3% on Friday to end the session at INR 789.45 on the BSE.

Meanwhile, the company on Thursday informed the exchanges that Income Tax (IT) officials ‘visited’ the offices of its subsidiary Paisabazaar earlier this week. PB Fintech noted that the business operations of Paisabazaar continue as usual and have not been impacted due to the survey proceedings.

Overall, PB Fintech fell 3.6% this week.

Largely helped by its improving bottom line, shares of the Policybazaar and Paisabazaar parent have gained over 22% in the last six months.

Paytm Continues To Fall

Paytm’s decision to scale down its loan disbursement business, largely affecting the BNPL or postpaid loan vertical, continues to weigh heavily on the fintech giant’s market performance.

After slumping a massive 25% last week, the stock fell almost 7.1% this week. 

Shares of Paytm ended the week at INR 605.85 on the BSE. The stock had last touched the INR 600 level or below towards the end of March this year. 

On the back of its improving outlook and bottom line, Paytm shares had gained a massive 86% this year till October. However, they are now trading only 14% higher year to date following the recent slide.

Rupak De, senior technical analyst at LKP Securities, said that Paytm seems to have reached its support level at INR 590. 

“Now, if Paytm holds above INR 590, then there is a possibility of some recovery towards INR 650-INR 700,” he said, adding that the stock might fall towards INR 500 if it slips below the support level.

Delhivery Trading At A Six-Month Low

Shares of the logistics unicorn started witnessing a significant slump in early October, days after it announced the allotment of some ESOPs. Since then, the stock has been on a downtrend. 

The company’s Q2 FY24 financial results also failed to add any major boost to the falling share prices. SoftBank selling its 1.83 Cr shares in November further added to the woes.

After a little over 7% fall this week, Delhivery shares have touched their lowest level since June 9. The stock ended the week at INR 357.6 on the BSE. In September, shares of Delhivery were trading around INR 440.

LKP Securities’ De said that Delhivery looks very weak on technical charts. It has support at INR 345 and a reversal is only possible above INR 376, he said.

The post Broader Market Bull Run Lifts Up New-Age Tech Stocks This Week, RateGain Nears $1 Bn M-Cap appeared first on Inc42 Media.

After the funding peak of 2021, when valuations of dozens of startups skyrocketed far away from their actual revenue, it seemed that a profitable startup was rarer than a unicorn.

But the sobering reality of the past two years has given unicorns and soonicorns of India a lot to think about. And primarily, their thoughts turned to one big question: How do we get to profitability?

Several startups have managed to answer this question in FY23 and even the likes of Zomato have turned the course around. What explains this new phase for Indian startups and tech giants?

We’ll look to get the answer about the profitable startup brigade in India, but after a brief detour into these top stories from this past week:

• Omidyar Hits The Eject Button: Omidyar Network, one of the oldest active VC firms in India, is exiting the market. Did the firm’s legal problems with regulators force its hand?
• Groww’s Super App Year: Groww thinks like a D2C company and looks at problems from a consumer-first perspective, says cofounder Harsh Jain as he gives us a peek into how the fintech giant is looking beyond investment tech
• Decoding CRED’s 2023: This was a big year for CRED — embracing the platform life with multiple new and revamped products, and proving that financially too, it is on the right track with its FY23 numbers

Startups Don The Profitability Hat

When we last looked at the financial state of Indian unicorns in March this year, as many as 55 out of 74 Indian unicorns who had released their FY22 numbers were in losses. Their combined loss of $5.9 Bn in FY22 was almost double their cumulative loss in FY21.

While losses are not new in any way, the fact that investor sentiment was turning sour meant that startups had to focus on generating cash from their business rather than relying on VC funding to expand and grow. In other words, VC money was used to widen the top of the funnel, but when the tap is turned off startups have to find a way to get more revenue from the users they have acquired.

“VCs have always wanted startups to monetise and generate free cash flow, but the reality of the market was such that startups needed scale to make this possible. They relied on funding to grow their cache of users and are now looking to capitalise on this base,” Naganand Doraswamy, founder of early-stage VC firm Ideaspring Capital, told us.

Doraswamy, who founded Ideaspring in 2016, claims that this is how tech has grown in the Silicon Valley ecosystem, too. He pointed out that India is going through the phase, which Silicon Valley saw in the late 90s when a few startups emerged and are now tech giants after three decades.

The Profitable Startup Brigade

Other investors believe that if anything, India is maturing faster and profitability is part of the maturity curve. Even younger startups are turning profitable faster because they are focussing on profits and not scale, says the cofounder of a Mumbai-based micro VC firm.

But a lot of this has to do with the sector and segment that the startup operates in. It’s not possible to eke out profits in ecommerce in the first two or three years, but in fintech or enterprise tech, this is very much a possibility.

B2B models are better suited to churn out profitable startups, especially if factors like customer segmentation and product-market fit are right. And this is particularly true for startups that are targeting small businesses, where the TAM is still high and untapped.

B2C startups still need to spend to acquire users but those which did this in the past two years are reaping the rewards. Take Groww for instance, which turned profitable on a base of 6.5 Mn+ users. In a conversation with Inc42, Groww claims that profitability is an outcome of its product, other B2C companies still have to focus sharply on their revenue modelling and reducing customer acquisition costs.

Who Gets The Credit?

But who is to be credited for this change in the outlook among startups? Is it just that investors wanted startups to focus on profits, or to put it differently, would this change have been possible without the global economic slowdown, tight liquidity and the funding winter?

As investors tightened their purse strings, realisation struck that they needed to focus on their bottom lines to extend their runways and get fresh funding. This resulted in the start of restructuring exercises across startups through layoffs and cutbacks.

The fact is that a clear and short path to profitability is a condition for growth capital in 2023, so perhaps this phase would not have come without market conditions. There’s been a flurry of claims by startups around profitability, which is meant to perhaps act as a lure for investors. Startups have relied on vastly different terminologies and parameters for profitability — from profit after tax to EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA to profit as of a single month or the most recent quarter.

“We know many of the larger investors are also stipulating milestone-based tranches for investing in startups. Most startups that have raised large rounds this year have to have demonstrated their path to profitability or the potential for an exit in the next couple of years,” the Mumbai-based investor added.

Exits are, of course, on the cards for many investors with IPOs plans being revived in 2024 and 2025. Listed companies face the most visible pressure from investors to show profits and in Zomato’s case, the profitability has come after a decade of fine-tuning the revenue structure and charging customers directly per order. The rationalising of costs associated with Blinkit’s quick commerce model has also helped Zomato in a major way.

Zomato’s two profitable quarters show that the company has capitalised on the revenue momentum in FY24 and seems poised to become a profit-making machine.

Will The Tide Turn? 

Of course, it’s too early to say whether the profitability streak of FY23 will continue in 2024 and 2025. Like many have pointed out, the profits are in many cases a result of startups slowing down expansion of operations and user base. The focus has instead shifted to maximising revenue. Will Indian startups be back to their loss-making ways if and when they have to scale both revenue and users?

“It’s very much possible that startups go back to their old ways, but one thing is that those which need VC money will know that investor confidence can shift on a dime and if you don’t show the results there are a lot of questions, like in the case of BYJU’s today,” according to a Bengaluru-based edtech cofounder and CEO.

There’s also a feeling among startups that profits are possible without raising mega rounds, especially because talent costs have been rationalised. In addition, startups are replicating the business strategies that are working — Zomato and Swiggy’s platform fees and commission changes this year, for example.

One potential issue for startups that just focus on profits is that they might find their profits stagnating in the long run. “It’s a tricky balance. This year is about profits, but perhaps next year many companies will reinvest this profit into growing and expanding. And then the market will be asking questions about how long before they hit profits again,” the founder quoted above observed.

Profitability is also on the agenda for startups looking to get listed in 2024 and 2025. Showing profits before the listing is a recipe for a successful IPO, and it’s a motivation for the likes of OYO, Swiggy, PayU among others.

Startups go through cycles all the time. This year, startups are in the midst of a market that demands they show profits, but perhaps this expectation will change next year. And if so, will startups forget some of the hard lessons that brought them to profits in the first place?

In Focus: 2023 In Review 

Our wrap of the year continues with a flurry of stories on everything from the most controversial stories and personalities of the year to taking a look at the state of layoffs in the ecosystem.

• Swiggy vs Zomato: While Zomato has grown into a profitable entity, has it managed to outperform Swiggy among consumers in 2023? Here are the results of our survey of the consumer sentiments for these two food delivery giants
• Layoffs Outlook For 2024: After 35,000+ job cuts in 2022 and 2023, will the forthcoming year bring a positive change when it comes to startup layoffs and cutbacks?
• Startups Caught In Controversies: From boardroom battles at BharatPe to founders deceived at a startup event to financial mismanagement at VC-backed first, here’s what brought startups to the headlines for the wrong reasons
• Founders Start Up Again: More than 30 CXOs, including founders, have switched their tracks to float new ventures or join other companies in pursuit of new opportunities. What explains this transition?

Sunday Roundup: Startup Funding, Tech Stocks & More

• Funding Galore: Bright sparks for startup funding this week, with over $527 Mn raised by Indian startups across 21 deals
• Krutrim AI: Bhavish Aggarwal’s latest venture Krutrim has unveiled new large language models and a chatbot, claiming to be “India’s first full-stack AI”
• Alma Better: From a cash crunch to layoffs and opaque performance reviews, upskilling startup Alma Better’s story has gone from promising to problematic
• Grok In India: Elon Musk’s OpenAI and ChatGPT challenger Grok is now available in India for X Premium+ users

• SoftBank’s Sell Streak: Japanese major SoftBank offloaded 2.53% of its stake in Policybazaar this week after its exit from Zomato

We’ll be back next week with another roundup as we close the curtains on 2023.

Don’t forget to stay tuned to our social media channels during this time of the year. Join Inc42 on Instagram, X/Twitter and LinkedIn for the latest news as it happens.

The post Startups In Their Profitability Era appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Minister of State (MoS) for Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar on Saturday (December 16) said that the Centre plans to fund and support artificial intelligence (AI) startups in the country. 

Modelled on the lines of a similar framework for the semiconductor industry, Chandrasekhar said that funding and incentives will be rolled out to scale the burgeoning ecosystem. 

“AI compute (part of India AI Mission) will have two segments – one led by the private sector, similar to the design of the semiconductor ecosystem with incentivised investments. The other segment involves indigenously developed public sector capacity for AI emerging from C-DAC, which will be available to the Indian ecosystem,” Chandrasekhar said while speaking at an event in Bengaluru.

The government will also deploy ‘financial resources’ to build foundational AI models, large language models (LLMs), and various use cases for the emerging technology. He also said that the Centre would explore synergies between AI and semiconductor industries in areas such as development of AI chips. 

The minister said that the Centre is focussed on building a close knit ecosystem of academia, industry and startups to push the AI space in India. Chandrasekhar also called for nurturing AI talent in the country to fuel the demand from the booming AI space.

Meanwhile, he also called for formulating a global framework to regulate AI, saying that the emerging technology, over the course of next six to nine months, may take shape in a way that the world ‘may not anticipate or fully understand’.

“We need a global framework urgently because, in the next six to nine months, AI will take shape and evolve in a way that we may not anticipate or fully understand… Therefore, we need to establish this framework quickly, with a granular set of principles and rules that all countries can follow,” added Chandrasekhar.

He also termed AI as a ‘significant bolt’ to the ‘already galloping’ Indian digital economy. The MoS said that AI can propel India’s digital economy and foster growth in sectors such as healthcare, agriculture, and governance. 

On the rising menace of GenAI-powered deepfakes, misinformation, and disinformation, the minister reiterated that the Centre has proactively taken steps to address challenges on the digital front.

“Deepfakes are a classic example because misinformation and patently false information are diseases that social media has spread, causing harm, especially in democratic countries. It creates divisions, incitements, and fake narratives. Misinformation has been a problem in social media; now imagine misinformation powered by AI,” the minister added.

The move to fund homegrown AI startups comes at a time when generative AI has become a buzzword among Indian entrepreneurs. From Google’s Bard to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, the GenAI space has caught the imagination of people across the globe in the recent past. The adoption of the emerging technology is further expected to soar as businesses and consumers deploy and use applications such as text, image, audio and video, among others. 

This has spawned a host of new Indian startups in the domains. As per Inc42 data, India is home to more than 70 GenAI startups that have raised capital in excess of $440 Mn between 2019 and Q3 2023. 

Inc42 also estimates the homegrown GenAI market to grow to a market size of $17 Bn by 2030 from $1.1 Bn in 2023.

The post Centre To Support, Fund Indian AI Startups: MoS Rajeev Chandrasekhar appeared first on Inc42 Media.

In the past couple of decades, there has been a huge shift in the food lifestyle patterns in India. In recent years particularly, there has been a huge rise in the demand for organic food and products. 

There have been many drivers behind this development. The biggest one is that the country’s food and beverage industry, especially in the category of organic food, has experienced gradual growth in the past few years.

Organic food is pricier and the growth in the income levels of the middle class of India has enabled the population segment to shift in lifestyle. More Indians can now afford organic food and can make a cautious decision to choose such ingredients and food items. 

Tech startups and tech companies in India have been working to spread awareness about food and lifestyle change in India and promote organic food. They are further pushing the growth of the organic food industry and making it reach out to a larger chunk of the population.

Spreading Awareness For Adoption of Organic Food

Tech startups who track the country’s income and expenditure trends can understand the food industry’s pulse as a whole. They plan their communication and marketing tactics in a way to target the correct audience for the correct product or service. 

The primary way to reach out to the audiences is through targeted online advertisements on various social media and other means. The communication reaches the handheld devices of the particular user and is considered the most effective means. 

These companies also involve influencers for better and more effective outreach. The main aim of such communications is to break the myths surrounding organic food and spread better awareness.

Communicating Benefits Of Organic And Doing It On Right Time

The major reason for the non-adoption of organic food by the masses is due to the myths and disbelief associated with it. A major part of the population is not aware of the exact benefits of organic foods and this is where communication plays an important role. 

The lack of knowledge forces people to assume certain things about the organic food industry and thus are pushed away from adopting the lifestyle. More than communicating the benefits of organic foods, it is also important to communicate them at the right time. In this case, the right time is when people are making a shift in their lifestyle. Internet trends of users play an important role in tracking their preferences. 

When a user is making a shift in behavioural patterns and making lifestyle-related changes like starting to exercise, joining a gym or shifting to a new diet regime. 

This is the optimum time to communicate about the benefits of organic foods as at this time, the audience would be more receptive and the communication would be the most effective.

Informing Them From Where To Purchase

Other than communicating about the benefits of organic foods, it is also important to talk about the right sources from which such products can be purchased. Nowadays, there are numerous sellers of organic food items and there have been cases, where some sellers sold non-organic products, claiming them to be organic. 

Such incidents hamper the trust of the consumers and they develop a dislike for the whole segment of foods. It is highly important to verify the right and certified sellers of such products and promote them to the right audience. 

Consumer trust must be developed and this is what the new age tech startups are focusing on. Only the right sellers are promoted on various platforms, after a thorough background check and verification.

Delivering Organic Food In Less Than 20 Minutes

In recent times, food and grocery delivery startups and apps have upped the ante and there is now a cut-throat competition to fulfil such deliveries in as short time as possible. This has a positive impact on the organic food industry as these startups and food delivery apps also list the organic products in their offering. 

People wanting to buy organic foods can do it in a few clicks and get the products delivered within a few minutes to their doorstep, without any hassle.

Solutions For Pertaining Issues Related To Food, Health, Environment Sustainability

Tech startups are solving many problems at once by promoting organic foods. They are helping people overcome the issues related to chemical and fertiliser-infused foods by spreading much-needed awareness. 

Such foods cause long-lasting health issues and are a root cause of developing several complications within the human body. Other than that, the use of organic foods is very beneficial for the environment as the use of no chemicals does not impact the soil, water or air and gives a chance for the land to sustain itself for the next crop. 

It is a step ahead in the direction of environmental sustainability, something which is being promoted on international forums.

Using Technology To Reach Tier 3 Cities And Towns

A lifestyle change can only be considered complete and absolute for the whole population, when there is a vast outreach and people at the remotest level are impacted. This is why it is important to reach out to the people in Tier 2 and 3 cities. 

Technology plays a vital role in creating this outreach and communicating the benefits of organic food and creating both job and consumer opportunities at that level.

The post Disrupting The Plate: How Tech Startups Are Revolutionising Organic Food Distribution In India appeared first on Inc42 Media.

It has been a year of oxymorons for the Indian startup land and its incumbent. While the year was mostly bogged down in the extended wave of an unforgiving funding dry spell (aka the infamous funding winter), it also saw a spring of Indian founders rolling out their second or even third ventures.

It is imperative to mention that the year so far has seen more than 30 CXOs, including founders, switch their tracks to join other companies, float new ventures or assume new roles within existing companies. 

While many stepped down under mysterious circumstances or took an exit after their ventures were acquired or for various other reasons, the zeal of Indian founders to start afresh cannot be ignored.  

Interestingly, the trend of entrepreneurs not sticking to one particular venture in the world’s third-largest startup ecosystem is not new but became more evident with examples like Ola cofounder Ankit Bhati quitting the ride-hailing giant to focus on his SaaS venture Amnic.

The past few years have also seen eminent entrepreneurs like Kunal Shah (Freecharge to CRED), Jitendra Gupta (Citrus Pay to Jupiter), Anant Goel (Milkbasket to Sorted), et al. raise funds to start their new ventures.

However, one may ask if this trend is having any particular impact on the world’s third-largest startup ecosystem, especially investors. 

According to industry experts, investors tend to have more confidence in second and third-time founders, making them preferred choices for investment. And there is a simple explanation for this  — such entrepreneurs are already well-versed in the industry cycles and the rules of the game.

As far as the realm of the Indian startup ecosystem is concerned, such founders are more likely to succeed, without relying much on vanity metrics like valuations, and mentor new breeds of entrepreneurs entering the domain.

As we inch towards embracing new hopes for the Indian startup ecosystem with the year 2024 in sight, let’s steal a glance at some of these founders who started up again.

8 Founders Who Started Up Again In 2023

Dineout’s Cofounder Vivek Kapoor Marked His Healthtech Foray

This year, Dineout cofounder Vivek Kapoor left Swiggy to join Delhi-based healthcare financing startup AyushPay as its cofounder and chief business officer. 

The transition was also triggered by his desire to make a meaningful contribution to the Indian healthtech sector. Notably, he was AyushPay’s angel investor for a considerable period and had actively mentored the AyushPay team.

AyushPay (formerly known as DoctCo), a healthcare solutions provider, announced his appointment in July.

Founded in 2021 by Nimith Aggarwal and Col Hemraj, AyushPay provides financing and payment solutions to patients to make healthcare accessible and affordable. 

Kapoor became part of Swiggy’s leadership team after Dineout’s acquisition by Times Internet last year at a valuation of $150 Mn-$200 Mn. 

Anshuman Kumar Left Teachmint For The Love Of His Dating App

In a bid to focus on his new venture Duolop, a dating and relationship management app, Teachmint’s cofounder and CTO Anshuman Kumar quit the edtech startup in March.

“I am stepping into a new role as the founder of Duolop, a dynamic and innovative Indian app revolutionising how couples connect and grow together,” Kumar announced about his exit in a LinkedIn post.

Duolop is an app for couples, both married and unmarried, which aims to simplify the complexities of managing a relationship. It offers a private chat feature where couples can send messages, images and videos to each other and help them plan dates.

The app has already been launched on the Google Play and Apple Stores.

Founded in 2020 by Kumar, Mihir Gupta, Payoj Jain and Divyansh Bordia, Teachmint helps teachers and schools digitise their classrooms. The startup counts Lightspeed India, Rocketship.vc and Better Capital as among its marquee investors.

In November 2022, Teachmint laid off 45 employees or around 5% of its workforce. The startup’s net loss skyrocketed 24X to INR 131.70 Cr in FY22 from INR 5.52 Cr in FY21, while its operating revenue stood at INR 77.45 Lakh.

Zolostay’s Akhil Sikri Set Sail For A New Expedition

Akhil Sikri, cofounder of Zolostays, stepped away from his operational role at the coliving startup to pursue his new entrepreneurial venture.

In August, Sikri, along with his fellow directors Ketan Kapoor and Ayon Dutta, floated Quick Response Financial Technologies Pvt. 

The Bengaluru-based Quick Response engages in activities encompassing computer programming, consultancy and related services.

As per Sikri’s LinkedIn profile, he transitioned out of his active role at Zolostays in March. However, he continued to retain his position on the company’s board. His LinkedIn bio lists him as the cofounder of an upcoming, unnamed project.

Launched in 2015 by Sikri, along with Isha Choudhry, Nikhil Sikri and Sneha Choudhry, Zolostays offers affordable paying guest accommodations, service apartments and independent flats to students and working professionals via its AI-powered app.

The startup competes with the likes of Isthara and Stanza Living, among others.

On A New Adventure, GoMechanic’s Cofounders Deny To Throw In The Towel

Automobile after-sale services startup GoMechanic’s cofounders Rishabh Karwa and Nitin Rana stepped down from their roles after admitting to financial misreporting.

The story began in January this year, when GoMechanic cofounder Amit Bhasin, who continues to be associated with the startup as per his LinkedIn profile, admitted to committing “errors in judgement” regarding financial reporting while trying to pursue growth. 

While the dust is far from settled on the GoMechanic front, Karwa and Rana joined the list of founders starting up again.

Both of them are now working on two separate and unnamed new startups. 

Not much details are known about Rana’s new startup, except that his latest venture focusses on “Building Travel & Hospitality Product for Indian Subcontinent and World”.

However, Karwa has been quite vocal about starting anew, posting about the journey of building a new product and startup. His social media posts about Figma plugins and projects indicate some degree of progress. As per his LinkedIn profile, he is “building for local businesses”.

Both Karwa and Rana have not publicly announced raising any funds for their new startups till now. Now, it remains to be seen if the controversies around GoMechanic change anything for their new ventures. 

Polygon’s Cofounder Is Now The Captain Of Two New Ventures

In October, Polygon cofounder Jaynti Kanani resigned from his position at the blockchain scaling platform to focus on his new opportunities.

As per Kanani’s LinkedIn profile, he has cofounded two new startups – Mozak and Morphic. 

While Morphic is developing a platform designed to assist creators, filmmakers, and animators in producing high-quality content using AI technology, not many details are available for Mozak except that it is a Web3 platform. 

“After kickstarting Polygon in 2017, around six months back, I decided to step back from the day-to-day grind,” Kanani said in a post on X while announcing his decision to quit.

His LinkedIn profile shows that he served as the cofounder of Polygon until March 2023. 

Kanani is said to have stepped down from Polygon around the same time when the company undertook mass layoffs earlier this year. In February, the blockchain scalability platform culled 20% of its workforce as part of a restructuring exercise amid the ongoing crypto winter.

ShareChat’s Cofounders Quit To Incorporate A Robotics Startup

After quitting their first venture ShareChat in January, cofounders Bhanu Pratap Singh and Farid Ahsan established their second venture, General Autonomy, in May this year.

In November, the cofounders raised $3 Mn in seed funding from venture capital firms India Quotient and Elevation Capital for the robotics startup, General Autonomy.

Before leaving ShareChat, Singh also served as its CTO, while Ahsan held the COO’s role. The third ShareChat founder, Ankush Sachdeva, continues to be the CEO of the social media unicorn.

The cofounders’ exit coincided with ShareChat’s parent firm, Mohalla Tech, laying off 20% of its workforce or 500 individuals earlier in the year.

Founded in 2015, parent Mohalla Tech positions ShareChat as an Indic language social media platform. In 2022, it acquired Times Internet-owned social short-video platform MX TakaTak for over $600 Mn to foray into the competing short-video social space. 

Mohalla Tech’s loss jumped 38.17% year-on-year to INR 4,064.31 Cr in FY23, while operating revenue grew 62% to INR 540.21 Cr.

The post 8 Indian Startup Founders Who Started Up Again In 2023 appeared first on Inc42 Media.

In a landscape teeming with buzzwords like disruption, innovation and scalability, the stark reality of numbers often tells a different story. While 87 leading new-age tech companies in India have released their FY23 financials, the performance figures offer a cautionary tale. 

Despite a cumulative operating revenue of a staggering INR 1.97 Lakh Cr, 60 of these companies reported a combined loss of INR 38,933.6 Cr in FY23. In contrast, the rest managed to eke out a collective profit of INR 5,675 Cr. The divide becomes more intriguing considering that 19 of these companies are listed. 

We are over eight months into FY24, but a majority of Indian startups are yet to release their financial numbers for FY23, leaving many to wonder what lies beneath the surface. In the ongoing fiscal year, Inc42’s Indian Startup Financials Tracker FY23 aims to be your eyes and ears, updating you on the financial performance of startups.

It’s important to note that FY23 was far from smooth sailing for the Indian startup ecosystem. Faced with dwindling funding, startups resorted to mass layoffs. In addition, various Indian startups adopted restructuring measures, including elimination of some business units and reductions in marketing budgets, to navigate the downturn.

While the capital crunch was painful and humbling, it also pushed startups to control their expenditure and focus on profitability. As such, FY23 financials are more than numbers. They reveal how Indian tech companies navigated the funding winter and showed resilience while continuing to push for growth. Now, let’s delve deeper into the financial performance of Indian startups.

Editor’s Note: This list is not a ranking of any kind, we have placed companies alphabetically. This is a running list; we will be updating it periodically.

Inside The FY23 Financials Of Indian Startups

Note: All amount in INR Cr

Acko’s FY23 Loss Jumps To INR 739 Cr

Bengaluru-based fintech unicorn Acko saw its operating revenue rise 32% to INR 1,758.6 Cr in FY23 as compared to INR 1,334.4 Cr in the previous year. Loss jumped over 50% to INR 738.5 Cr during the year under review as against INR 482.3 Cr in the previous fiscal year. Earlier this year, the startup received the licence from the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) to commence life insurance business.

Read: Acko Earned INR 1,759 Cr By Selling Insurance In FY23

Apna’s Revenue Jumps 3X

Tiger Global-backed professional networking platform Apna’s revenue from operations surged nearly 3X to INR 180.2 Cr in FY23 from INR 63.8 Cr in the previous fiscal year. 

The startup incurred a loss of INR 120.3 Cr in FY23, an increase of 7% from INR 112.5 Cr in FY22.  The Nirmit Parikh-led startup’s total expenses also rose 73% to INR 308.4 Cr in FY23 from INR 178.3 Cr in the previous fiscal year.

Read: Tiger Global-Backed Apna’s FY23 Revenue Nearly Triples To INR 188 Cr

Atlan’s Profit Takes A Hit

Data collaboration software startup Atlan reported a profit after tax (PAT) of INR 7.74 Cr in FY23, a decline of 18.70% from INR 9.52 Cr in FY22.

The Salesforce-funded startup’s operating revenue rose 189.78% to INR 93.83 Cr from INR 32.38 Cr in FY22

Total expenses jumped 203.45% to INR 85.53 Cr in FY23 from INR 28.19 Cr in FY22.

Read: SaaS Startup Atlan’s Profit Slips 19% To INR 7.74 Cr In FY23

Ather Energy’s Revenue Quadruple In FY23

Bengaluru-based two-wheeler electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer Ather Energy’s operating revenue jumped 4.3X to INR 1,783.6 Cr in FY23 from INR 408.5 Cr in the previous fiscal year. Despite this, the Hero MotoCorp-backed startup’s net loss surged over 150% to INR 864.5 Cr from INR 344.1 Cr in FY22. 

The two-wheeler EV manufacturer’s total expenses more than tripled to INR 2,670.6 Cr from INR 757.9 Cr in FY22

Read: Ather Energy’s Loss Shoots Up 2.5X To INR 865 Cr IN FY23

BankBazaar’s Loss Falls 15% To INR 37 Cr

Fintech startup BankBazaar’s net loss narrowed over 15% to INR 36.71 Cr in FY23 from INR 43.23 Cr in the fiscal year ended March 2022. The startup’s operating revenue stood at INR 158.69 Cr in FY23, up from INR 95.52 Cr in FY22.  

Eight Roads-backed BankBazaar’s total expenditure zoomed 40% YoY to INR 196.93 Cr in FY23.

Read: BankBazaar Trims FY23 Loss By 15% As Top Line Jumps 66% To INR 158.69 Cr

Beardo Slips Into The Red, Posts INR 6.1 Cr Loss In FY23

Marico-owned men’s grooming D2C brand Beardo slipped into the red during the financial year under review. The Ahmedabad-based D2C brand reported a net loss of INR 6.1 Cr in FY23 as against a net profit of INR 75.5 Lakh in the previous fiscal year. 

Beardo’s revenue from operations rose 12.3% to INR 106.6 Cr in FY23 from INR 94.8 Cr in FY22, as per Marico’s annual report for the year ended March 31, 2023.

Total expenditure stood at INR 115.3 Cr in FY23, a rise of 20% from INR 96.1 Cr in FY22. 

Read: Marico-Owned Beardo Slips Into The Red, Posts INR 6.1 Cr Loss In FY23

BigBasket Crosses INR 16,000 Cr Revenue Mark 

Tata-owned BigBasket reported a total revenue of INR 16,903 Cr in FY23, a jump of 8.4% from INR 15,593 Cr in the previous fiscal year. 

The combined B2C and B2B business of BigBasket incurred a net loss of INR 3,320 Cr in the financial year 2022-23 (FY23), a 79% increase from INR 1,853 Cr reported in the previous fiscal year.

BigBasket spent INR 770 Cr for advertisement and promotional expenses during the year under review.

Read: BigBasket B2C Arm’s Net Loss Surges 89% To INR 1,535.2 Cr In FY23

Bira 91’s Sales Inch Closer To INR 1,000 Cr Mark

Delhi NCR-based beer brand Bira 91 reported an operating revenue of INR 824.3 Cr in the year ended March 31, 2023, an increase of 15% from INR 718.8 Cr in the previous fiscal year. 

Bira 91’s net loss increased 12% to INR 445.4 Cr in FY23 from INR 396 Cr in the previous fiscal year. Total expenditure increased 14% to INR 1,282.4 Cr during the year under review from INR 1,122.5 Cr in FY22.

Read: Bira 91 Incurred Loss Of INR 445 Cr From Sales Of Beers In FY23

BlueStone’s Expenses Dip 45%

Jewellery startup BlueStone’s operating revenue increased over 1.6X to INR 770.7 Cr in FY23, an increase of 67% from INR 461.3 Cr in the previous fiscal year. 

The startup’s loss plunged 86% to INR 167.2 Cr from INR 1,268.4 Cr in FY22 on account of a one-time non-operating expense in the previous fiscal year. The jewellery startup’s total expense declined 45% to INR 955.1 Cr in FY23 from INR 1,739 Cr in FY22. 

The startup is in the process to raise $65 Mn from Nikhil Kamath’s office, Deepinder Goyal, Amit Jain, and Ranjan Pai

Read: Ratan Tata-Backed BlueStone Earned INR 771 Cr By Selling Jewellery In FY23

boAt Slips Into The Red For First Time Since Inception

Aman Gupta-led consumer electronics startup boAt slipped into the red for the first time since its inception as the increase in its expenses outpaced the rise in sales. boAt reported a net loss of INR 129.4 Cr in FY23 after posting a profit of INR 68.7 Cr in FY22.

Operating revenue rose 18% to INR 3,376.7 Cr from INR 2,873 Cr in the previous fiscal year.

The startup earned INR 2,350.8 Cr in FY23 from the audio segment, which accounted for 70% of its operating revenue. The wearable segment contributed INR 901.5 Cr to boAt’s topline this year.

Total expenses jumped 28% to INR 3,562 Cr in FY23 from INR 2,786.9 Cr in the previous fiscal year.

Read: Aman Gupta’s boAt Sold Audio Products, Smartwatches Worth INR 3,376 Cr In FY23

BookMyShow Turns Profitable After COVID

Online ticketing platform BookMyShow turned profitable and posted a consolidated net profit of INR 85.1 Cr in FY23 as against a loss of INR 92.2 Cr in the previous fiscal year.

As more people stepped out and went to movie theatres and attended live events post the Covid-19 pandemic, the startup’s operating revenue surged 252% to INR 975.5 Cr in FY23 from INR 277 Cr in the previous fiscal year. 

BookMyShow’s total expenses also jumped 138% to INR 940.9 Cr in FY23 from INR 395.2 Cr in the previous financial year

Read: BookMyShow Posts INR 85 Cr Profit In FY23 On Post-Pandemic Boost, Sales Jump 3X

CaratLane’s Sales Cross INR 2,000 Cr Mark

Titan-owned jewellery startup CaratLane’s operating revenue surged 73% to INR 2,169 Cr in FY23 from INR 1,255.6 Cr in the previous fiscal on the back of growing demand.

Despite the rise in revenue, CaratLane’s net profit dipped 8% to INR 82 Cr during the year under review from INR 89.2 Cr in the previous fiscal year.
Total expenditure jumped 69% to INR 2,068.5 Cr in FY23 from INR 1,225.9 Cr in the previous fiscal year.

Read: Titan-Owned CaratLane’s FY23 Sales Jump To INR 2,169 Cr, Profit Dips To INR 82 Cr

CarTrade Back In The Black In FY23

CarTrade, which recently acquired OLX’s India business, returned in the black in the financial year ended March 31, 2023. The Rajasthan-based startup reported a net profit of INR 40.4 Cr in FY23 as compared to a loss of INR 121.3 Cr in the previous year. 

Operating revenue rose around 16% to INR 363.7 Cr in FY23 from INR 312.7 Cr. 

The auto marketplace also reported an over 300% rise in profit after tax at INR 13.5 Cr in the first quarter of the financial year 2023-24 (FY24) from INR 3.3 Cr posted in the year-ago quarter. 

Read: CarTrade’s PAT Jumps 4X YoY To INR 13.5 Cr In Q1

Amazon-Backed Cashify’s Revenue Crosses INR 800 Cr Mark

Delhi NCR-based recommerce startup Cashify’s sales jumped 67% to INR 815.9 Cr during FY23 from INR 497.9 Cr in the previous fiscal year. 

Despite the rise in revenue, Cashify’s net loss increased in FY23. Its net loss grew 49% to INR 147.9 Cr during the year under review from INR 99.3 Cr in FY22.

The Amazon-backed startup saw its expenditure grow 61% to INR 973.4 Cr in FY23 from INR 603.1 Cr in the previous fiscal year.

Read: Cashify Earned INR 816 Cr By Selling Refurbished Phones, Laptops In FY23

Classplus’ FY23 Loss Widens To INR 257 Cr

The Tiger Global-backed edtech startup’s net loss rose 57% to INR 256.6 Cr in FY23 from INR 163.5 Cr in FY22. Operating revenue jumped 4X to INR 102.04 Cr in FY23, compared to INR 25.9 Cr in the previous year.

Earlier this year, Classplus faced legal trouble when Saarthi’s cofounder, Chiraag Kapil, and its investors filed a lawsuit against it in the Delhi High Court (HC) for alleged cheating and criminal breach of trust.

Read: Tiger-Backed Classplus Spent INR 4 To Earn Every INR 1 From Ops In FY23

Clear’s Revenue Crosses INR 100 Cr Mark

Peak XV Partners-backed Clear’s (formerly known as ClearTax) operating revenue jumped over 85% to INR 108.8 Cr in the financial year 2022-23 (FY23) from INR 58.7 Cr in FY22.

Despite the increase in revenue, the startup’s net loss grew nearly 5% to INR 233.5 Cr in FY23 from INR 222.7 Cr in FY22.

Total expenditure increased over 21% to INR 343.7 Cr from INR 283 Cr in FY22.

Read: Tax Filing Platform Clear’s FY23 Revenue Jumps Over 85% To Cross INR 100 Cr Mark

Flipkart-Owned Cleartrip’s Loss Doubles 

Flipkart-owned online travel aggregator Cleartrip witnessed a 90% surge in its loss to INR 676.5 Cr in FY23 from INR 356.5 Cr in the previous financial year. The startup’s operating revenue declined 10% to INR 50 Cr, whereas expenses jumped 63% to INR 773.2 Cr in the financial year. On a unit economics level, the startup spent INR 15 to earn every INR 1 from its operations. 

Read: Flipkart Owned Cleartrip Spent INR 15 To Earn Every INR 1 From Ops In FY23

Kunal Shah’s CRED’s Revenue Jumps 250% In FY23

Kunal Shah-led fintech unicorn CRED’s total revenue jumped over 3.5X in the financial year ended March 31, 2023 to INR 1,484 Cr from INR 422 Cr in the previous fiscal year. 

While the loss grew 5% to INR 1,347.4 Cr in FY23 from INR 1,279.5 Cr in the previous fiscal year, the startup’s total expenditure jumped 1.6X to INR 2,831.9 Cr in FY23 from INR 1,702.1 Cr.

CRED, which is known for splurging on advertisements, reduced its marketing costs by 26% to INR 713.4 Cr from INR 975.7 Cr in FY22.

Read: Kunal Shah-Led CRED’s Revenue Jumps 3.5X To INR 1,484 Cr In FY23

Darwinbox’s Loss Jumps To INR 158 Cr

HRtech unicorn Darwinbox’s consolidated net loss soared 2.4X to INR 158.25 Cr in FY23 from INR 65.72 Cr in the previous fiscal year.

The Microsoft-backed startup’s operating revenue almost doubled to INR 224.04 Cr in FY23 from INR 116.73 Cr in FY22. 

The SaaS-based startup’s total expenses soared 2.2X to INR 407.22 Cr in FY23 from INR 186.93 Cr in the previous fiscal year.

Read: HRtech Unicorn Darwinbox’s FY23 Loss Surges 2.4X To INR 158 Cr

Delhivery Sees Meagre Uptick In Revenue

Logistics company Delhivery saw a 5% YoY jump in operating revenue in the financial year ended March 31, 2023. The Lee Fixel-backed startup reported an operating revenue of INR 7,225.3 Cr in the financial year under review as compared to INR 6,882.2 Cr it had reported in the previous quarter. 

The startup also reported a loss of INR 1,007.7 Cr in FY23, a 0.3% dip as compared to the loss of INR 1,011 Cr it had reported in the previous year. 

However, the logistics startup reported almost a 78% decline in net loss at INR 89.5 Cr in the first quarter of FY24 from INR 399.3 Cr reported in the last year’s quarter.

Read: Delhivery’s Q1 Loss Narrows 78% YoY To INR 89.5 Cr On Strong Growth Across Verticals

DroneAcharya Witnesses 700% Jump In Profit

Of the listed companies, Pune-based drone startup Droneacharya reported the highest jump in profit on a YoY basis. The company reported a profit of INR 3.4 Cr in FY23, a jump of over 700% from INR 0.4 Cr it had reported in the previous fiscal. 

The startup’s operating revenue also increased by over 429% to INR 18.5 Cr in FY23 as compared to INR 3.5 Cr it had reported in the previous fiscal year. 

Read: DroneAcharya’s FY23 Profit Jumps Over 700% YoY To INR 3.42 Cr On Increase In Offerings

Dunzo’s Loss Quadruples

Reliance-backed Dunzo’s loss nearly quadrupled in the financial year ended March 31, 2023. The Bengaluru-based hyperlocal delivery startup’s loss surged to INR 1,801 Cr in FY23 from INR 464 Cr in the previous fiscal year. 

Meanwhile, operating revenue increased 317% to INR 226.6 Cr in FY23 from INR 54.3 Cr in FY22. The startup’s total expenses ballooned 286% to INR 2,054.4 Cr in FY23 from INR 531.7 Cr in the previous fiscal year

Read: Dunzo Spent INR 9 To Earn Every Single Rupee From Operations In FY23

EaseMyTrip Nears INR 500 Cr Mark in Sales

Prashant, Nishant, and Rikant Pitti-led online travel aggregator – EaseMyTrip – reported a 91% jump in operating revenue in the year under review. The Delhi-NCR-based startup reported an operating revenue of INR 448 Cr in FY23, an almost 2X jump from INR 235.3 Cr it had posted. EaseMyTrip also reported a profit of INR 134 Cr in FY23, a 27% jump from INR 106 Cr it had reported in the previous fiscal.

However, the startup’s profit declined by 22% YoY to INR 26 Cr in the first quarter of financial year 2023-24 (FY24).

Read: EaseMyTrip’s Q1 PAT Declines 22% YoY To INR 25.9 Cr On Deep Discounts

ElasticRun’s Revenue Cross INR 4,000 Cr Mark

Softbank-backed logistics unicorn ElasticRun’s revenue from operations saw a YoY increase of 24.71% to INR 4,754.86 Cr from INR 3,812.65 Cr in FY22. Further, the total revenue saw a YoY increase of 26.71% to INR 4,851.09 Cr from INR 3,828.24 Cr in the previous fiscal.

However, the startup loss nearly doubled to INR 618.82 Cr from INR 358.59 Cr in FY22. 

ElasticRun’s total expenditure surged 30.65% YoY to INR 5,469.91 Cr from INR 4,186.66 Cr in FY22.

Read: SoftBank-Backed ElasticRun’s FY23 Loss Doubles To INR 619 Cr

Flipkart’s B2B Arm’s Loss Jumps 42%

Flipkart India, the B2B arm of Flipkart, saw its standalone net loss balloon over 42% to INR 4,845.7 Cr in FY23 from INR 3,404.3 Cr in FY22. 

Operating revenue increased a mere 9.7% to INR 55,923.9 Cr in FY23 from INR 50,992.5 Cr in the previous fiscal year.  Total expenses rose 11.5% to INR 60,858.5 Cr in FY23 from INR 54,580 Cr in FY22.

Read: Flipkart’s B2B Arm’s FY23 Loss Surges 42% To INR 4,846 Cr

SaaS Unicorn Fractal Posts INR 194 Cr Profit 

New York-based AI intelligence unicorn Fractal turned profitable in FY23, posting a profit of INR 194.4 Cr as against a loss of INR 148.4 Cr in FY22. 

Operating revenue increased 53% to INR 1,985.4 Cr in FY23 from INR 1,295.3 Cr in the previous fiscal year. Total expenditure surged 52% to INR 2,225.2 Cr from INR 1,461.5 Cr in the previous fiscal year. 

Read: Exceptional Gain Helps SaaS Unicorn Fractal Post INR 194 Cr Profit In FY23

Fino Reports 50% PAT Jump In FY23

Mumbai-based Fino reported a 166% increase in its operating revenue to INR 95 Cr in FY23 as compared to INR 35.6 Cr it had reported in the previous fiscal year. The payments bank further reported a 52% increase in net profit to INR 65 Cr in FY23 as compared to INR 42.7 Cr it had reported in the previous financial year. 

The payments bank reported an 85% YoY jump in its profit after tax (PAT) to INR 18.7 Cr in the June quarter (Q1) of the financial year 2023-24 (FY24) as compared to a PAT of INR 10.1 Cr on a revenue of INR 289 Cr in Q1 FY23.

Read: Fino Payments Bank’s Q1 PAT Jumps 85% YoY To INR 18.7 Cr; To Apply For Small Finance Bank Licence

Groww Turns Profitable In FY23

Bengaluru-based stock broking platform Groww’s parent entity Billionbrains Garage Private Limited turned profitable in the financial year ended March 31, 2023. It reported a net profit of INR 448.7 Cr in FY23 as against a net loss of INR 239 Cr in the previous fiscal year. 

Operating revenue jumped over 3X to INR 1,277.8 Cr in FY23 from INR 351 Cr in the previous fiscal year. Groww’s expenses increased by a muted 41% to INR 932.9 Cr in FY23 from INR 663.6 Cr in the previous fiscal year

Read: Groww’s Revenue Crosses INR 1,000 Cr Mark, Posts Profit Of INR 449 Cr In FY23

HealthifyMe’s Loss Dips

Healthtech startup HealthifyMe saw its total loss decline by around 10% to INR 142 Cr in FY23, down from INR 157 Cr reported in the year-ago fiscal. 

Meanwhile, total revenues from operations rose 23% to INR 228.7 Cr in FY23 from INR 185.25 Cr in FY22. Total expenditure stood at INR 371.72 Cr during FY23, up 8.23% YoY.

Read: HealthifyMe’s Revenue Cross INR 200 Cr Mark, Losses Dip 10% In FY23

HomeLane’s Net Loss Jumps Over 15% 

Home interior startup HomeLane witnessed a 1.1X increase in net loss in the financial year ended March 31, 2023. The Bengaluru-based startup reported a net loss of INR 173.5 Cr in the financial year 2022-23 (FY23), a 15% increase from INR 150.8 Cr in FY22. 

The MS Dhoni-backed startup saw its total expenses increase over 1.3X to INR 757.2 Cr in FY23 from INR 581.7 Cr in the previous fiscal year. 

Read: HomeLane’s Loss Widens 15% To INR 173.5 Cr In FY23

ideaForge’s Profit Dips In FY23

Listed in 2023, drone manufacturing startup ideaForge saw its profit drop in the financial year ended March 31, 2023. The company reported a 28% drop in profit to INR 32 Cr in FY23 from INR 44 Cr it had reported in the previous fiscal year. 

The Mumbai-based startup’s operating revenue rose 17% to INR 186 Cr in FY23 from INR 160 Cr it had reported in the previous fiscal year. 

Moreover, in the first quarter of the ongoing fiscal year, the company saw over 50% decline in profit to INR 18.9 Cr as compared to INR 41.2 Cr it had reported in the corresponding quarter last year. 

Read: ideaForge’s PAT Declines 54% YoY To INR 18.9 Cr In Q1

iD Fresh Food’s Loss Halves In FY23

Ready-to-cook food maker iD Fresh Food’s net loss narrowed over 50% in FY23. The Bengaluru-based startup, which sells idli batter and parota, incurred a loss of INR 328.8 Cr in FY23, a 53% decline from INR 703.7 Cr in the previous year. 

Operating revenue increased 26% to INR 479.2 Cr during the year under review from INR 381.6 Cr in FY22. The startup’s expenses grew 14% to INR 517.1 Cr in FY23 from INR 453.9 Cr in the previous fiscal year. 

Read: iD Fresh Food Earned INR 479 Cr By Selling Idli & Dosa Batter In FY23

IndiaMART Nears INR 1,000 Cr In Sales

The only new-age publicly listed ecommerce marketplace, IndiaMART, witnessed a slight improvement in its revenue in the financial year ended March 31, 2023. Dinesh Agarwal-led B2B ecommerce marketplace reported an operating revenue of INR 985.3 Cr in FY23, a 31% increase from INR 753.4 Cr it reported in the previous fiscal year.  

The company’s profit dipped around 5% to INR 283.8 Cr in FY23 as compared to INR 298 Cr it had reported in the previous fiscal year. 

In Q1 FY24, it reported a consolidated revenue of INR 282.1 Cr, up 25.65% YoY. 

Read: IndiaMART At 52-Week High Following Q1 Results

Indifi In The Black In FY23

Lendingtech startup Indifi Technologies turned profitable in the financial year ended March 31, 2023. The Delhi NCR-based startup reported a net profit of INR 5.1 Cr in FY23 as compared to a loss of INR 32.8 Cr in FY21. 

Revenue from operations jumped over 2X to INR 197.9 Cr in FY23 from INR 96.29 Cr in the previous fiscal year. 

The startup’s total expenditure stood at INR 202.8 Cr in FY23, an increase of 1.4X from INR 138.4 Cr in the previous fiscal year. 

Read: Alok Mittal Led Indifi Reports INR 5.1 Cr Profit In FY23

INDMoney’s Operating Revenue Doubles 

Investment tech startup INDmoney reported a 7.7% rise in its net loss to INR 73.9 Cr in FY23 from INR 68.6 Cr in the previous fiscal year.

The startup’s operating revenue  increased to INR 40.6 Cr during the year from INR 21.8 Cr in FY22.

INDmoney’s overall spending grew 1.5X to INR 200 Cr in FY23 from INR 133.4 Cr in the prior fiscal year. 

Read: INDmoney’s FY23 Net Loss Widens To INR 73.9 Cr, Revenue More Than Doubles

Info Edge In The Red In FY23, Revenue Crosses INR 2,000 Cr Mark

Sanjeev Bikhchandani-led Info Edge, the first Indian internet company to go public, reported a 47.6% jump in operation revenue to INR 2,345.7 Cr in FY23 from INR 1,589 Cr it had reported the previous year. However, the company slipped in the red in FY23. 

The parent entity of Naukri.com reported a net loss of INR 70.4 Cr in FY23 as against a net profit of INR 1,288.2 Cr in FY22. It must be noted that Info Edge wrote off investment worth INR 276 Cr in Rahul Yadav led 4B Network during this period. 

However, it reported a profit of INR 147.4 Cr in the first quarter of FY24. 

Read: Info Edge Back In The Black With INR 147.4 Cr Net Profit In Q1

InsuranceDekho Narrows Loss To INR 51.5 Cr 

InsuranceDekho, the insurance arm of CarDekho, managed to narrow its net loss by 29% to INR 51.5 Cr in FY23 from INR 72.2 Cr in FY22, on the back of a strong growth in its business.

The Haryana-based insurtech startup’s operating revenue doubled to INR 96.4 Cr during the year under review from INR 47.9 Cr in the previous fiscal year. The startup’s total expenses rose 25% to INR 151.8 Cr from INR 121 Cr in FY22

Read: InsuranceDekho’s Net Loss Narrows 29% To INR 51.5 Cr In FY23

Jar Spent INR 16 To Earn Every Rupee

Fintech startup Jar’s loss increased 77% to INR 122.8 Cr in FY23 from INR 69.5 Cr in FY22.

The Bengaluru-based investment tech startup’s revenue from operations jumped to INR 8.7 Cr in FY23 from INR 73.8 Lakh a fiscal ago. 

The Tiger Global-backed startup’s expenses doubled to INR 137.5 Cr in FY23 from INR 70.3 Cr in FY22.

Read: Tiger Global-Backed Jar Spent INR 16 To Earn INR 1 In FY23

Jupiter Spent INR 54 To Earn Every Rupee

Neobanking soonicorn Jupiter Money’s loss jumped over 2X to INR 327 Cr in FY23 from INR 156.3 Cr in the previous fiscal, hurt by a sharp jump in its employee benefit expenses.

The Jitendra Gupta-led startup reported an astronomical increase in revenue to INR 7.1 Cr from a mere INR 40 Lakh it had reported in the previous year. The startup’s FY23 expenses increased 115% to INR 383 Cr in FY23 from INR 178 Cr in FY22.

Read: Neobank Jupiter Spent INR 54 To Earn Every Rupee In FY23

Justdial’s Profit More Than Doubles In FY23

Reliance-acquired hyperlocal search engine Justdial reported a 130% jump in profit in the financial year ended March 31, 2023. The Mumbai-based company reported a net profit of INR 162.7 Cr in FY24, a 2.2X increase from INR 71 Cr it had reported in the previous financial year. 

The company reported an operating revenue of INR 844.7 Cr in FY23, a 30.5% increase from INR 647 Cr it had reported in the previous year. 

Even in the first quarter of the ongoing financial year, the company reported a net profit of INR 83.4 Cr, a 72% increase from INR 48.4 Cr it had reported in the corresponding quarter of previous fiscal year. Operating revenue stood at INR 247 Cr in Q1 FY24.

Read: Justdial’s User Traffic Crosses 17 Cr Mark In Q1, Posts Record Revenue Of INR 247 Cr

LEAD School’s Loss Narrows 

Mumbai-based edtech startup LEAD School’s net loss declined 18.5% to INR 321.9 Cr in FY23 from INR 395.3 Cr in FY22 on strong growth in business and reduction in cash burn.

The startup’s revenue from operations increased by more than 2X to INR 273.1 Cr in FY23 from INR 132.3 Cr in the previous fiscal year, as per its filing with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs.

Total expenses increased over 14.7% to INR 617.4 Cr in FY23 from INR 538.1 Cr in FY22. 

Read: LEAD School’s FY23 Loss Narrows 18.5% to INR 322 Cr

Licious Narrows Loss By 38% To INR 529 Cr

Bengaluru-based meat delivery startup Licious witnessed a marginal rise of 9.5% in its operating revenue to INR 748 Cr in FY23 from INR 682.5 Cr in the previous fiscal year.

Meanwhile, the startup managed to decrease its net loss by over 38% to INR 528.5 Cr in FY23 from INR 855.6 Cr in the previous year due to reduction in its cash burn. 

Licious’ total expenses rose 9.8% to INR 1,309.2 Cr in FY23 from INR 1,191.4 Cr in the previous fiscal year. 

Read: Licious Sold Meat Worth INR 748 Cr In FY23 But Growth Plateau

Mamaearth Slips Into The Red 

IPO-bound D2C unicorn Mamaearth slipped into the red with a net loss of INR 151 Cr in FY23 as against a net profit of INR 14.4 Cr in the previous fiscal year on the back of a one-time loss of INR 155 Cr.

The startup reported an operating revenue of INR 1,492.7 Cr in FY23, a jump of 58% from INR 943.4 Cr in the previous fiscal year. Total expenditure surged 59% to INR 1,501.6 Cr in FY23 from INR 942 Cr in the previous year, in line with the increase in its operating revenue.

Read: Goodwill Impairment Hits IPO-Bound Mamaearth, Posts INR 151 Cr Loss In FY23

MapmyIndia’s Profit Crosses INR 100 Cr Mark

Geotech startup MapmyIndia saw a 40% jump in operating revenue to INR 281.4 Cr in the financial year ended March 31, 2023 from INR 200 Cr in the previous fiscal year. Besides increase in operating revenue, the startup reported a jump of 32% in profit on a YoY basis to INR 107.5 Cr in FY23. 

In Q1 FY24, it reported a 32.2% YoY rise in consolidated net profit to INR 32 Cr.

Read: MapmyIndia Q1 Net Profit Zooms 32.2% YoY To INR 32 Cr

Matrimony Sees Dip In Profit In FY23

Indian online matchmaking site Matrimony saw its profit after tax slip 13% to INR 46.6 Cr in  FY23 from INR 53.5 Cr in the previous financial year. The matrimonial site’s operating revenue rose just 5% to INR 455.7 Cr in FY23 from INR 434.4 Cr in the previous fiscal year.

Matrimony saw a 18% increase in profit to INR 4.16 Cr in the first quarter of FY24 as against INR 11.95 Cr it had reported in the corresponding quarter in previous year. 

Read: Matrimony’s Q1 PAT Rises 18% YoY To INR 14 Cr

MediBuddy’s Loss Crosses INR 300 Cr Mark

Bengaluru-based healthtech startup MediBuddy’s net loss widened 24% to INR 321.7 Cr in FY23 from INR 259.3 Cr in the previous fiscal year.

The operating revenue of the startup, founded by Satish Kannan and Enbasekar Dinadayalane, grew 27.2% to INR 297.7 Cr during the year under review from INR 234.1 Cr in FY22.

MediBuddy’s total expenses jumped over 30% to INR 648.9 Cr in FY23 from INR 497.4 Cr in the previous year, with the cost of materials consumed being the single biggest contributor at 35%.

Read: MediBuddy’s FY23 Loss Jumps 24% To INR 321.7 Cr As Business

Fintech Giant MobiKwik Narrows Loss To INR 83.8 Cr

Delhi NCR-based fintech unicorn MobiKwik’s net loss fell 35% in the financial year ended March 31, 2023. The startup reported a net loss of INR 83.8 Cr in FY23 as against a loss of INR 128.1 Cr in the previous fiscal year. 

While the startup reduced its expenditure to INR 617 Cr in FY23 from INR 652.5 Cr in the previous fiscal year, MobiKwik’s operating revenue remained almost flat at INR 539.4 Cr in FY23. 

Read: MobiKwik’s FY23 Loss Declines 35% To INR 84 Cr, Operating Revenue Flat

Moglix’s Revenue Crosses INR 4,000 Cr Mark

Rahul Garg’s B2B ecommerce startup Moglix reported an operating revenue of INR 4,664.7 Cr in FY23, a jump of 83% from INR 2,554.6 Cr in the previous year. The Bengaluru-based startup saw its loss increase 12% to INR 196 Cr from INR 175.3 Cr in FY22. Total expenditure jumped 80.5% to INR 4,941 Cr in FY23 from INR 2,736.8 Cr in FY22. 

Earlier this year, the Tiger Global-backed startup laid off around 40 employees. 

Read: Moglix FY23 Revenue Jumps To $560 Mn, Founder Sells Shares Worth $10 Mn

Nazara’s Sales Zooms Past INR 1,000 Cr Mark

Nitish Mittersain-led gaming company Nazara Technologies saw a sharp increase in revenue in the financial year ending on March 31, 2023. The Mumbai-based technology company reported an operating revenue of INR 1,091 Cr in the financial year under review, a 75% jump from INR 621.7 Cr it had reported in the previous year. Profit jumped 21% to INR 61.4 Cr from INR 50.7 Cr in FY22. 

In the first quarter of FY24, the company saw its operating revenue jump to 14% to INR 254.4 Cr during the quarter under review from INR 223.1 Cr in the year-ago quarter.

In Septmeber 2023, the gaming giant also raised INR 510 Cr from Zerodha founders and SBI Mutual Fund.

Read: Nazara Tech’s Q1 Net Profit Soars 31% YoY To INR 20.9 Cr

NeoGrowth Turns Profitable In FY23

Mumbai-based non-banking financial company (NBFC) NeoGrowth turned profitable in the financial year ended March 31, 2023. The NBFC reported a profit of INR 17.2 Cr in FY23 as against a net loss of INR 39.4 Cr in FY22. 

The Lighrock-backed NBFC reported an operating revenue of INR 380.8 Cr in FY23, a meager 5.3% increase from INR 361.5 Cr in the previous year. Meanwhile, it saw a 13.7% decline in expenses to INR 357.4 Cr from INR 414.5 Cr in FY22. 

Read: NeoGrowth In The Black In FY23, Posts Profit Of INR 17.2 Cr

Noise Profits Takes A Plunge

Gurugram-based bootstrapped startup Noise saw its profit nosedive to INR 88 Lakh in the financial year 2023-23 (FY23) from INR 35.5 Cr a year ago.

However, the startup’s operating revenue jumped 1.8X to INR 1,426.5 Cr in FY23 from INR 792.8 Cr in FY22. 

The smartwatch and earphone manufacturer’s expenses surged 1.9X to INR 1,431.6 Cr in FY23 from INR 752.6 Cr in FY22. 

Read: Noise’s FY23 Revenue Soars Past INR 1,400 Cr, But Profit Fails To Create A Buzz On Rising Expenses

Nykaa Reports 50% Dip In Profit In FY23

Beauty fashion giant Nykaa, which listed on the bourses in 2021, reported an operating revenue of INR 5,143.8 Cr in FY23, a 36% increase from INR 3,773.9 Cr it had reported in the previous fiscal year. 

The Falugni Nayar-led ecommerce startup saw its profit dip by around 50% to INR 21 Cr in the year under review as compared to INR 41 Cr it had reported in the previous fiscal year.

Employee benefit expenses jumped to INR 492 Cr in FY23 from INR 326.4 Cr in FY22. Of late, the company has also seen several top-level exits.

However, the Mumbai-based company posted a net profit of INR 5.4 Cr in Q1 FY24 as compared to a profit of INR 5 Cr in the same quarter of previous fiscal year. 

Read: Nykaa Q1: Net Profit Rises 8% YoY To INR 5.4 Cr

OfBusiness’ Revenue Crosses INR 15,000 Cr Mark

Delhi NCR-based B2B marketplace OfBusiness’ revenue from operation crossed the INR 15,000 Cr mark in FY23. The unicorn marketplace reported an operating revenue of INR 15,342.5 Cr in FY23, an increase of 115% from INR 7,139.5 Cr in the previous fiscal year.

Net profit surged 130% to INR 463.2 Cr in FY23 from INR 201.1 Cr in the previous fiscal year. 

Total expenditure more than doubled to INR 15,037.4 Cr during the year under review from INR 6,993.5 Cr in FY22

Read: OfBusiness Posts INR 463 Cr Profit In FY23, Revenue Crosses INR 15,000 Cr Mark

OneCard’s Operating Income Jumps 6X

Credit card startup OneCard reported a 6X increase in its operating revenue to INR 541.1 Cr in FY23 from INR 83.7 Cr in the previous fiscal year. 

Meanwhile, loss more than doubled to INR 405.6 Cr in FY23, an increase of 122% from INR 182.7 Cr in FY22. 

Total expenditure rose 3.5X to INR 999.5 Cr in FY23 from INR 280.6 Cr in the previous fiscal year. 

Read: Fintech Unicorn OneCard Spent 60% Of Its Operating Revenue On Advertising In FY23

Oxyzo’s Profit Triples In FY23

Fintech unicorn Oxyzo’s profit after tax almost tripled to INR 197.5 Cr in the financial year ended March 31, 2023 from INR 69.3 Cr in the previous financial year. 

Oxyzo’s revenue from operations increased by over 82% to INR 570 Cr in FY23 from INR 313 Cr in the previous financial year. 

The company also reported a 1.7X jump in employee benefit expense to INR 78 Cr in FY23 from INR 46 Cr in the previous year. 

Read: Fintech Unicorn Oxyzo’s FY23 PAT Jumps Over 2.8X To INR 198 Cr

OYO’s Loss Declines 34% To INR 1,287 Cr 

IPO-bound hospitality unicorn OYO reported a 34% decrease in its net loss to INR 1,286.5 Cr in FY23 from INR 1,941.5 Cr in the previous fiscal year, as expenses declined marginally despite growth in business. 

The SoftBank-backed startup’s operating revenue grew 14% to INR 5,463.9 Cr in FY23 from INR 4,781.3 Cr in the previous fiscal year. Total expenditure fell 3% to INR 6,799.6 Cr from INR 6,985.3 Cr in the previous fiscal year. 

Read: IPO-Bound OYO’s Loss Declines 34% To INR 1,287 Cr In FY23

Paper Boat’s Sales Cross INR 500 Cr Mark

Hector Beverages, the parent company Paper Boat, saw its net loss widen 71% to INR 90.6 Cr in the financial year FY23 from INR 53 Cr in FY22.

The juice maker’s loss widened, despite it crossing the INR 500 Cr mark in sales for the first time. The startup’s sales rose 56% to INR 504 Cr during the year under review from INR 324 Cr in FY22.

Paper Boat’s total expenses rose to INR 599.1 Cr in FY23 from INR 378.1 Cr in the previous fiscal year.

Read: Paper Boat’s FY23 Loss Surges 71% To INR 90.6 Cr, Revenue Crosses INR 500 Cr Mark

PayMate Manages To Narrow Its Loss

IPO-bound B2B payments solutions provider PayMate managed to narrow its consolidated net loss by a marginal 3.5% to INR 55.7 Cr in FY23 from INR 57.7 Cr in the previous fiscal year. On the other hand, operating revenue rose 11.7% to INR 1,350.1 Cr in FY23 from INR 1,208.9 Cr in FY22.

The fintech startup’s total expenses increased 11% to INR 1,407.3 Cr during the year under review from INR 1,266.9 Cr in FY22. In that, the cost of materials accounted for a significant 95%.

Read: IPO-Bound PayMate’s FY23 Loss Narrows Marginally To INR 55.7 Cr

Paytm’s FY23 Loss Drops By 26%

Vijay Shekhar Sharma-led Paytm improved its financial performance in FY23. The Delhi NCR-based fintech giant reported a 1.6X jump in operating revenue at INR 7,990.3 in FY23 from INR 4,974.2 Cr in the previous fiscal year. 

Its net loss also reduced 26% to INR 1,766.5 Cr in FY23 from INR 2,396.4 Cr in the previous fiscal year. 

Even in the first quarter of FY24, the startup reported a revenue of INR 2,342 Cr, a 39% jump from INR 1,680 Cr it reported in the previous quarter.

Read: Paytm Q1 Net Loss Declines 45% YoY To INR 358.4 Cr But Jumps 113% QoQ

PB Fintech’s Operating Revenue Jumps To INR 2,558 Cr

Mumbai-based insurtech startup PB Fintech saw its operating revenue jump over 80% to INR 2,557.8 Cr in FY23 from INR 1,425 Cr in the previous fiscal year. Despite the startup’s advertisement expense jumping 1.6X to INR 1,357 Cr in FY23, PB Fintech reduced its net loss by 41.4% to INR 488 Cr from INR 832.9 Cr in FY22. 

In the first quarter of FY24, the startup managed to reduce its loss by over 94% to INR 11.9 Cr from INR 204 Cr in the year-ago quarter.

Read: PB Fintech’s Q1 Net Loss Narrows 94% YoY To INR 11.9 Cr

Porter’s FY23 Revenue Crosses INR 1,700 Cr Mark

Intra-city logistics service provider Porter reported a 2X jump in operating revenue on a YoY basis in the financial year ended March 31, 2023. The Tiger Global-backed startup reported an operating revenue of INR 1,753.5 Cr in the year under review as against INR 847.6 Cr in the previous fiscal year. 

Porter’s net loss jumped over 43% to INR 157.7 Cr in FY23 as compared to INR 122 Cr in the previous year. The startup, which has raised $132 Mn in funding so far, spent INR 185 Cr on employee benefit expenses, a 75% increase from INR 106 Cr in the previous year. 

Read: Logistics Startup Porter’s Operating Revenue Doubles To INR 1,753 Cr In FY23

Purplle’s Sales Inches Closer To INR 500 Cr Mark

Beauty ecommerce marketplace Purplle’s operating revenue more than doubled to near the INR 500 Cr mark during the year ended March 31, 2023. The startup’s operating revenue or sales stood at INR 474.9 Cr in FY23, an increase of 116% from INR 219.8 Cr in FY22. 

Despite the rise in operating revenue, Purplle’s net loss grew 13% to INR 230 Cr from INR 203.6 Cr in FY22. 

The startup’s total expenditure grew 71% to INR 738.3 Cr from INR 431.2 Cr in FY22.

Read: Purplle’s FY23 Sales Inch Closer To INR 500 Cr Mark, Loss Widens To INR 230 Cr

RapiPay’s Loss Doubles In FY23

After raising $15 Mn in 2022, fintech startup RapiPay saw its net loss jump over 2X in the financial year ended March 31, 2023. The Noida-based startup incurred a net loss of INR 93.3 Cr in FY23 as against a loss of INR 40 Cr in the previous financial year. The significant rise in startup’s loss could be attributed to an increase in service and commission charges, which grew to INR 360.8 Cr in FY23 from INR 322.2 Cr in the previous year.

The startup’s revenue from operations also rose to INR 439.2 Cr in FY23 as compared to INR 371.4 Cr in the previous fiscal year. 

Read: Fintech Startup RapiPay’s Net Loss Jumps 2.3X To INR 93.3 Cr In FY23

RateGain’s Profit Jumps Over 700%

Traveltech SaaS startup RateGain reported a whopping 714% jump in profit to INR 68.4 Cr in FY23 from INR 8.4 Cr in the previous fiscal year. The Delhi NCR-based company saw its revenue from operations jump over 54% to INR 565 Cr from INR 366 Cr in FY22. 

In Q1 FY24, the company tripled its profit after tax to INR 24.9 Cr from INR 8.4 Cr in the previous year. The company reported an 80% YoY increase in operating revenue to INR 214.5 Cr in Q1 FY24.

Read: RateGain Q1 PAT Almost Triples YoY To INR 24.9 Cr On Robust Travel Demand

Recykal Slips Into The Red 

Morgan Stanley-backed waste management marketplace Recykal slipped into the red in FY23, reporting a net loss of INR 25.7 Cr as against a net profit of INR 1.2 Cr in FY22. 

However, the Hyderabad-based startup’s operating revenue jumped 291% to INR 745.1 Cr in FY23 from INR 190.4 Cr in the previous fiscal year. 

Read: Morgan Stanley-Backed Recykal Slips Into The Red, Posts INR 25.7 Cr Loss In FY23

Rupeek’s Loss Declines 23% 

Gold loan startup Rupeek reported a 22.7% narrowed loss of INR 281.6 Cr in FY23 from INR 364.4 Cr in FY22. The Bengaluru-based startup’s revenue from operations dropped 27.7% to INR 88.9 Cr in FY23 from INR 122.9 Cr in FY22.

Total expenses fell one-fourth to INR 376.9 Cr in FY23 from INR 499.4 Cr in the previous fiscal year.

Read: Fintech Startup Rupeek’s FY23 Loss Declines 23% To INR 282 Cr, Sales Slide 28%

Pine Labs-Owned Setu’s Loss Jumps Over 100%

Bengaluru-based fintech startup Setu’s FY23 net loss jumped 118% year-on-year (YoY) to INR 62 Cr. The startup’s operating revenue increased 22% to INR 14.2 Cr from INR 11.6 Cr a fiscal ago.

The fintech startup’s overall expenditure rose by over 77% to INR 79.6 Cr during the year under review from INR 44.9 Cr it spent in the previous fiscal year. 

Read: Pine Labs Owned Setu Spent INR 5.6 To Earn Every Rupee In FY23

Servify’s Operating Revenue Almost Doubles

Device management startup Servify’s net loss narrowed to INR 229.1 Cr in FY23 from INR 2,860.8 Cr posted in the previous fiscal, helped by a sharp decline in non-operating expenses.

Servify’s operating revenue almost doubled to INR 313 Cr during the year under review from INR 611.2 Cr in FY22.

The startup reported an over 73% decline in its total expenses to INR 846.7 Cr in FY23 from INR 3,176.4 Cr the previous year.

Read: Decline In Non-Operating Expenses Helps Servify Narrow FY23 Loss Over 90% To INR 229 Cr

ShareChat’s Loss Crosses INR 5,000 Cr Mark

India’s indigenous social media platform ShareChat saw its loss increase to INR 5,144 Cr in FY23 on the back of amortisation expenses due to the acquisition of MX Taka Tak. In FY22, the startup’s loss stood at INR 2,988.6 Cr in FY22.

ShareChat’s revenue from operations increased 59% to INR 552.7 Cr in FY23 from INR 346.9 Cr in FY22.

The startup’s total expenses increased 72% to INR 5,862.1 Cr in FY23 from INR 3,407.5 Cr

Read: Google Backed ShareChat’s Losses Ballooned To INR 4,064 Cr In FY23 

Shiprocket’s Revenue Crosses INR 1,000 Cr Mark

Zomato-backed logistics unicorn Shiprocket’s revenue from operations increased over 78% to INR 1,088.8 Cr in FY23 from INR 610.5 Cr on the back of its acquisition spree.

The startup’s loss increased over 425% to INR 333.8 Cr during the year under review from INR 63.6 Cr in the previous fiscal year.

On the expenses front, the Saahil Goel-led startup spent a total INR 1,397 Cr in FY23 as against INR 697.8 Cr it had spent in FY22.

Read: Shiprocket’s FY23 Revenue Crosses INR 1,000 Cr Mark, Reports 3.6X Surge In Loss

Spacetech Startup Skyroot’s Loss Doubles 

Indian spacetech startup Skyroot Aerospace saw its standalone net loss widen to INR 55.2 Cr in FY23 from INR 23.7 Cr in the prior fiscal year.

While the startup’s operating revenue rose to INR 44 Lakh in FY23 from INR 1.5 Lakh in the previous year, its expenses surged to INR 63 Cr during the year under review from INR 24 Cr in FY22.  

Read: Skyroot Aerospace’s FY23 Net Loss Jumps Over 2X To INR 55 Cr

Tata 1mg’s Sales Cross INR 1,600 Cr Mark

The online pharmacy, owned by the Tata Group, saw its net loss jump over 2X to INR 1,254.8 Cr in FY23 from INR 526 Cr in FY22. 

However, operating revenue jumped over 2.6X to INR 1,627 Cr in FY23 from INR 627 Cr it reported in the previous fiscal year. Unlike most startups, Tata 1mg reduced its marketing expenditure by 25% to INR 135 Cr in FY23 from INR 180 Cr in FY22. 

Read: Tata 1mg’s Net Loss Soars 2.3X To INR 1,259 Cr In FY23

Testbook’s Loss Almost Triples In FY23

Government job test prep startup Testbook’s loss surged 2.7X to INR 129.8 Cr in FY23 from INR 48 Cr in FY22.  The Mumbai-based startup’s revenue from operations rose 59% to INR 56.1 Cr in FY23 from INR 35.2 Cr in the previous fiscal year. 

Testbook’s expenses rose a whopping 2.2X to INR 186.7 Cr during the year under review from INR 81.4 Cr in the previous year, with employee benefit expenses climbing 200% to INR 95 Cr from INR 31.8 Cr in FY22. 

Read: Testbook Spent INR 3.3 To Earn Every Rupee From Operations In FY23

Tracxn Reports Profit In FY23

The Bengaluru-based market intelligence startup turned profitable in the financial ending on March 31, 2023. In FY23, Tracxn reported a net profit of INR 33 Cr as opposed to a net loss of INR 4.4 Cr it had reported in the previous fiscal year. Tracxn’s operating revenue stood at INR 78.1 Cr, a 23% increase from INR 63.4 Cr it reported in the previous fiscal year. 

However, Tracxn’s net profit declined 18% to INR 0.69 Cr in Q1 FY24 from INR 0.84 Cr in the year-ago quarter. 

Read: Tracxn’s Q1 Net Profit Halves QoQ To INR 69 Lakh, Revenue Slips 2.5%

True Balance’s Profit Jumps Over 17X 

Softbank-backed digital payments and lending platform True Balance saw its profit jump over 17X in the financial year 2022-23 (FY23). The Delhi NCR-based fintech startup reported a net profit of INR 59 Cr in the year under review, a 1,600% jump from INR 3.4 Cr it reported in the previous fiscal year. 

True Elements’ Spent INR 84 Cr To Earn INR 57 Cr

Marico-owned healthy snacks brand True Elements’ net loss jumped 37% to INR 18.6 Cr in FY23 from INR 13.6 Cr in FY22. 

While the startup’s operating revenue saw a 25% jump to INR 57.3 Cr in FY23 from INR 45.8 Cr in FY22, expenditure increased over 44% to INR 84.2 Cr in FY23 from INR 58.4 Cr in the previous fiscal year. The startup’s biggest expenses, cost of materials consumed, increased over 43% to INR 36.5 Cr in FY23 from INR 25.5 Cr.

Read: True Elements Spent INR 84 Cr To Earn INR 57 Cr From Selling Healthy Snacks In FY23

Udaan’s FY23 Revenue Declines 43%

Bengaluru-based B2B ecommerce startup Udaan’s operating revenue declined 43% to INR 5,609.3 Cr in FY23 from INR 9,897.3 Cr in the previous fiscal year. Its net loss also fell 33.5% to INR 2,076 Cr in FY23 from INR 3,123.4 Cr in the previous fiscal year.

As per some media reports, Udaan is in discussions to raise around $250 Mn in  fresh round of funding. 

Read: Udaan’s Operating Revenue Drops 43% To INR 5,609 Cr In FY23

Unicommerce’s Profit Inches Up 

IPO-bound SaaS startup Unicommerce’s operating revenue zoomed 52% to INR 90 Cr in the financial year 2022-23 from INR 59 Cr in the previous fiscal year on strong demand for its services.

This resulted in the SoftBank-backed startup’s net profit rising 8% to INR 6.4 Cr in FY23 from INR 5.9 Cr in FY22.

The startup’s overall expense rose 55% to INR 84.1 Cr in FY23 from INR 54.4 Cr in the previous fiscal year.

Read: IPO-Bound Unicommerce Posts INR 6.4 Cr Profit In FY23, Revenue Nears INR 100 Cr Mark

Uniphore’s Net Profit Quadruples

Uniphore, one of the few profitable unicorns, saw its net profit rise further in FY23. The startup’s profit jumped over 4X to INR 142.7 Cr in FY23 from INR 33.4 Cr in FY22. This was the second consecutive profitable year for the startup after it reported a net loss of INR 281.8 Cr in FY21. 

However, operating revenue fell 28% to INR 488.4 Cr and overall expenses also dropped 29% to INR 492.7 Cr in FY23. 

Read: Uniphore’s FY23 Profit Quadruples To INR 143 Cr As Revenue From India Soars 272X

upGrad’s Loss Jumps Past INR 1,000 Cr Mark

Mumbai-based edtech unicorn upGrad’s net loss surged 76% to INR 1,141.5 Cr in the financial year 2022-23 (FY23) from INR 648.2 Cr in the previous fiscal year.

The startup’s bottom line took a hit due to goodwill writedown of INR 410 Cr despite its operating revenue crossing the INR 1,000 Cr mark. The Ronnie Screwvala-led startup reported an operating revenue of INR 1,169.6 Cr in FY23, an increase of 97% from INR 595 Cr in the previous fiscal year.

The startup’s overall expenses increased 56% to INR 1,938 Cr from INR 1,241 Cr reported in the previous fiscal year.

Read: upGrad’s FY23 Loss Surges To INR 1,141.5 Cr On Goodwill Writedown Of INR 410 Cr

Urban Company’s Employee Expenses Drops 15%

Delhi NCR-based consumer service startup Urban Company saw its net loss drop by 39% to INR 312.4 Cr in FY23 from INR 514 Cr in the previous fiscal year. The Dragonner-backed unicorn reported a net operating revenue of INR 636.5 Cr in FY23, a 45% jump from INR 437 Cr it had reported in the previous financial year. 

Interestingly, the company reduced its employee benefit expenses by 15% to INR 377 Cr in FY23 from INR 443.8 Cr in the previous fiscal year. Since the beginning of this year, the startup has been facing a series of protests from its partners over permanent blocking of their IDs due to a sudden increase in the required customer rating to continue working with the platform.

 Read: Urban Company’s India Biz Achieves Adjusted EBITDA Breakeven In Q1 FY24

Wakefit’s Operating Revenue Crosses INR 800 Cr Mark

D2C furniture and mattress startup Wakefit’s net loss widened by 37% to INR from INR 107 Cr in the previous fiscal year. 

Revenue from operations increased 28% to INR 813 Cr during the year under review from INR 632.5 Cr in the previous fiscal year.  Total expenses grew 30% to INR 965.6 Cr in FY23 from INR 743.5 Cr in the previous fiscal year.

Read: After Spending INR 96 Cr On Advertising, Wakefit Incurs INR 146 Cr Loss In FY23

Xpressbees’ Loss Surges Over 6X 

Logistics unicorn Xpressbees’ net loss widened over 500% to INR 180.4 Cr in FY23 from INR 27.1 Cr in FY22. Operating revenue increased a mere 1.3X to INR 2,531.5 Cr during the year under review from INR 1,904.4 Cr in FY22.  

The TPG-backed startup’s total expenses grew 42% to INR 2,784.7 Cr in FY23 from INR 1,957.1 Cr in the previous fiscal year. 

Read: Logistics Unicorn Xpressbees’ FY23 Loss Surges Over 500% To INR 180 Cr

Yulu’s Loss Inches Closer To INR 100 Cr Mark

Emobility startup Yulu saw its consolidated net loss widen 71% to INR 94.9 Cr in FY23 from as against INR 55.5 Cr in FY22.

The cleantech startup’s operating revenue rose to INR 41.7 Cr, a 43.8% from INR 29 Cr it reported in the previous fiscal year. 

Yulu reported a total expenditure of INR 140.1 Cr in FY23, a sharp 60.5% increase from INR 87.3 Cr spent in the prior fiscal.

Read: Yulu’s FY23 Net Loss Widens 71% To INR 94.9 Cr As Business Expands

Zepto’s Revenue Suprasses INR 2,000 Cr Mark

Zepto, the latest entrant to the unicorn club, reported an operating revenue of INR 2,024.3 Cr in FY23, a 14X increase from INR 140.7 Cr in the previous fiscal year.

At the same time, the startup’s loss soared 3.2X to INR 1,272.4 Cr from INR 390 Cr in FY22.

Total expenses stood at INR 3,350 Cr in FY23 as against INR 532.7 Cr in the previous year.

Read: Zepto’s FY23 Revenue Jumps 14X To INR 2,078 Cr, Loss Triples To INR 1,272 Cr

Kamath Brothers’ Led Zerodha’s Revenue Inches Closer To INR 7,000 Cr Mark

Bootstrapped stock-broking platform Zerodah, led by Nithin and Nikhil Kamath, reported a total income of INR 6,875 Cr in FY23, an increase of 38% from INR 4,964 Cr in the previous fiscal year. 

The Bengaluru-based unicorn, which is valued at $3.6 Bn, saw its net profit jump 39% to INR 2,907 Cr from INR 2,094.3 Cr in FY22.

Read: Zerodha’s FY23 Net Profit Rises To INR 2,907 Cr As Revenue Nears INR 7,000 Cr Mark

Zomato’s Loss Under INR 1,000 Cr

Delhi NCR-based food delivery giant saw its consolidated revenue surge over 68% to INR 7,079.4 Cr during the year under review. In the previous financial year, the startup had reported an operating revenue of INR 4,192.4 Cr. Zomato, which completed the acquisition of quick commerce delivery startup Blinkit in FY23, saw its net loss drop by 20.5% to INR 971 Cr in FY23 from INR 1,222.5 Cr in FY22. 

In the first quarter of FY24, the startup reported an operating revenue of INR 2,416 Cr as against INR 1,413.9 Cr in Q1 FY23. The startup also reported its first-ever profitable quarter. It posted a consolidated profit after tax (PAT) of INR 2 Cr in Q1 as against a consolidated net loss of INR 186 Cr in the corresponding quarter of the previous fiscal. 

Read: Zomato Turns Profitable, Reports INR 2 Cr PAT In Q1

Edited By: Vinaykumar Rai
Last Updated: 16th December, 17:30 PM IST

The post Indian Startup FY23 Financials Tracker: Tracking The Financial Performance Of Top Startups appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Continuing with its upward momentum in the second week of December, the Indian startup ecosystem managed to secure $527 Mn across 21 deals, marking one of the highest funding weeks in the past two years, ever since the funding winter set in early 2022. This marks a 520% jump from $85 Mn raised across 18 deals in the preceding week.

Besides, the week also witnessed a mega deal in the ecosystem with Udaan raising $340 Mn in its Series E funding round. 

Funding Galore: Indian Startup Funding Of The Week [Dec 11 – Dec 16]

Key Startup Funding Highlights Of The Week

• Business-to-business (B2B) ecommerce giant Udaan raised $340 Mn in its Series E financing round led by UK-based M&G Prudential, with participation from existing investors Lightspeed Venture Partners and DST Global, making it the biggest funding deal of the week.
• Fuelled by Udaan’s funding, the ecommerce sector not only emerged as the most funded sector this week with $380.9 Mn funding but also witnessed a maximum number of deals with eight deal counts.
• Lightspeed Venture Partners emerged as the busiest investors as it participated in two deals each.
• Seed funding took a backseat this week with a mere $2.8 Mn across two deals.

Startup Acquisitions This Week

• US-and India-based CareStack, a cloud-based dental practice management platform acquired Kerala-based artificial intelligence (AI) startup Waybeo for an undisclosed amount.
• Direct-to-consumer (D2C) superfood brand Nourish You acquired Bengaluru-based One Good (erstwhile Goodmylk) for an undisclosed sum.
• Fintech startup M2P acquired big data analytics and intelligence platform Goals101 for $30 Mn in a cash-and-equity deal.
• Kunal Shah-backed Anq Finance acquired healthcare-focussed lending startup Kiwimoney for an undisclosed amount.
• Indian mobile gaming company Octro acquired Israel-based DGN Games for an undisclosed amount.

Other Major Developments From This Week

• Aditya Birla Group’s Hindalco Industries will invest INR 800 Cr to set up a battery foil manufacturing facility in Odisha’s Sambalpur district.
• Climate-focused Asha Ventures marked the first close of its debut fund at $50 Mn, which will have a total corpus of $100 Mn.

The post From Udaan To VeGrow — Indian Startups Raised $527 Mn This Week appeared first on Inc42 Media.

A total of 71 founders of 42 new-age tech companies in India took home INR 228.4 Cr in annual salaries in the financial year 2022-23 (FY23)!

The average founder annual salary rose marginally to INR 3.30 Cr in FY23 from INR 2.86 Cr in FY22.

This comes at a time when the ongoing funding winter has brought about a significant transformation in the country’s startup ecosystem, compelling startups to focus on profitability. This also meant cutting down cash burn, which resulted in companies taking aggressive cost-cutting measures, including pay cuts and layoffs.

According to Inc42’s layoff tracker, Indian startups have laid off more than 29,000 employees since the onset of the funding winter in 2022. 

While these drastic measures helped some startups turn profitable or reduce their losses, most of the startups are still bogged down by losses.

While 41 companies (excluding Lenskart) out of the aforementioned 42 reported a total operating revenue of INR 75,809 Cr in FY23, 23 of them incurred a combined loss of INR 17,615 Cr.

Amid all these, it’s natural for one to ask that if the employees are losing their jobs and taking pay cuts, have the founders of the new-age tech companies also seen a decrease in their remunerations? To answer this question and keep our readers up to date with the remunerations earned by the founders, Inc42 has launched the ‘Founder Salaries FY23 Tracker’. 

The tracker will keep you informed about the remuneration earned by the founders in FY23, the percentage increase/decrease in their salaries compared to FY22, and more.

Editor’s Note: This list is not a ranking of any kind, we have placed companies alphabetically. This is a running list and will be updated periodically. 

Founder Remuneration Tracker FY23

Companies are placed in alphabetical order | Data has been sourced from MCA filings, annual reports, and DRHPs | The remuneration Includes salary, wages, & bonus

*NOTE: Includes, salary, wages, & bonus

Nithin & Nikhil Kamath | Zerodha

Nithin and Nikhil Kamath, the cofounders of bootstrapped stock broking platform Zerodha, took home INR 48 Cr each in annual salaries in FY23, making them the highest paid founders in this list as of now. However, their remuneration remained unchanged from the previous fiscal year even as Zerodha’s net profit increased 37% to INR 2,909 Cr. Its total revenue inched closer to the INR 7,000 Cr mark during the year under review.

Ritesh Agarwal | OYO

OYO’s Ritesh Agarwal is currently second on the list. In FY23, Agarwal took home INR 12 Cr in remuneration, representing a 114% hike from INR 5.6 Cr withdrawn in FY22. It must be noted that while Agarwal’s compensation more than doubled during the year, the unicorn fired nearly 600 employees in FY23.

OYO reported a 34% decline in its net loss to INR 1,286.5 Cr in FY23 from INR 1,941.5 Cr in the previous fiscal year. The SoftBank-backed startup’s operating revenue grew 14% to INR 5,463.9 Cr in FY23 from INR 4,781.3 Cr in FY22. 

Deepak Singh Ahlawat | Gameskraft

Deepak Singh Ahlawat, the cofounder of Gameskraft, received one of the biggest hikes among the list of the cofounders featured in this list. His annual remuneration jumped 264.6% to INR 10.1 Cr in FY23 from INR 2.77 Cr in the previous fiscal year.

The startup’s revenue from operations jumped 24.8% to INR 2,662.5 Cr in FY23 from INR 2,133.1 Cr in FY22, while profit rose 14.2% to INR 1,061.9 Cr in FY23 from INR 930.4 Cr in FY22.

Manish Taneja | Purplle

Manish Tanjea and Rahul Dash, the cofounders of beauty ecommerce startup Purplle, took home INR 6.71 Cr each in remuneration in FY23, a hike of 527% from INR 1.07 Cr each they got in the previous fiscal year.

The startup’s operating revenue or sales stood at INR 474.9 Cr in the financial year 2022-23 (FY23), an increase of 116% from INR 219.8 Cr in FY22. Loss grew 13% to INR 230 Cr from INR 203.6 Cr in FY22.

Nitish Mittersain | Nazara Technologies

Nitish Mittersain, CEO and cofounder of publicly listed Nazara Technologies, was one of the highest-paid founders in the year under review. Mittersain took home INR 4 Cr as remuneration in FY23. His remuneration increased 21% from INR 3.3 Cr he earned in the previous fiscal year. 

Meanwhile, the Mumbai-based company reported an operating revenue of INR 1,091 Cr in FY23, a jump of 75% from INR 621.7 Cr in the previous fiscal year. Net profit rose 21% to INR 61.4 Cr from INR 50.7 Cr in FY22. 

Vijay Shekhar Sharma | Paytm

Vijay Shekhar Sharma, the founder of Paytm and the poster boy of the Indian fintech sector, took home INR 4 Cr as remuneration in FY23. Sharma’s annual remuneration increased 8% from INR 3.7 Cr in FY22. 

On the other hand, Paytm reported a 1.6X jump in operating revenue to INR 7,990.3 in FY23 from INR 4,974.2 Cr in the previous fiscal year. Net loss reduced 26% to INR 1,766.5 Cr in FY23 from INR 2,396.4 Cr in the previous fiscal year. 

Dinesh Agarwal | IndiaMART

Dinesh Agarwal, the founder of publicly listed B2B ecommerce marketplace IndiaMART, took home took home INR 3.8 Cr in salary, an increase of 11.8% from INR 3.4 in the previous year. 

The company which was founded in 1999 reported an operating revenue of INR 985.3 Cr in FY23, an increase of 31% from INR 753.4 Cr in the previous fiscal year. Profit, however, dipped around 5% to INR 283.8 Cr from INR 298 Cr in FY22. 

Sahil Barua & Kapil Bharati | Delhivery

Sahil Barua, the cofounder and CEO of Delhivery, received an annual remuneration of INR 3.1 Cr in FY23. This was a 11% increase from INR 2.88 Cr that he took home in the previous fiscal year. 

Kapil Bharati, the CTO of Delhivery, was fifth on the list with a remuneration of INR 3 Cr in FY23, an increase of 24% from INR 2.42 Cr in FY22.

Meanwhile, Delhivery reported a 5% jump in operating revenue to INR 7,225.3 Cr in FY23 from INR 6,882.2 Cr in the previous fiscal year. Loss was almost flat at INR 1,007.7 Cr in FY23 as against INR 1,011 Cr in FY22. 

Gaurav Singh Kushwaha| BlueStone

Gaurav Singh Kushwaha, the CEO and cofounder of Ratan Tata-backed jewellery brand Bluestone, took home an annual remuneration of INR 3.1 Cr. This was a surge of 313% from INR 75 Lakh he took home in the previous fiscal year.

Meanwhile, BlueStone saw its operating revenue increase 67% to INR 771 Cr in FY23 from INR 461.3 Cr in the previous fiscal year. Net loss jumped 183% to INR 167.2 Cr in FY23 from INR 59 Cr in FY22.

Last Updated: 15th December, 18:30 PM IST

The post Founder Salaries Tracker FY23: Amid The Funding Winter, How Much Did Startup Founders Earn? appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Just when the Indian startup ecosystem was poised to reach new heights, the year 2022 unfolded like a nightmare and with it unravelled a flurry of distasteful events.

While the likes of Trell, Zilingo and BharatPe made headlines in 2022 for all the wrong reasons, 2023 became the extension of what could not be accomplished a year ago in terms of setting wrong precedents. 

From the boardroom brawls of BharatPe, founders falling victim to deception at a startup forum, financial mismanagement and syphoning of funds to accusations that Shark Tank judges failed to uphold their promises, the year thus far has been rife with controversies, painting a less-than-ideal picture of the Indian startup landscape.

Now that we stand on the edge of 2023 to welcome 2024, let’s take you through this year’s top controversies and disputes that we wished had never happened to start with.

With that said, let’s get the ball rolling.

Revisiting Major Startup Controversies That Stirred Up A Storm In 2023

BYJU’S 2023: A Year Of Turmoils

In 2023, the edtech juggernaut, BYJU’S, found itself ensnared in a series of controversies. The year commenced with a saga of delayed financial reporting, prompting the departure of auditor Deloitte Haskins & Sells and the exit of three influential board members — MD of Peak XV Partners V Ravishankar, Russell Dreisenstock of Prosus and Chan Zuckerberg’s Vivian Wu. 

As the year unfolded, BYJU’S encountered an inquiry by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), alleging a staggering INR 9,000 Cr violation of FEMA rules, resulting in a show cause notice. 

The challenges intensified when the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) took BYJU’S to the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) over a dispute concerning sponsorship dues amounting to INR 158 Cr for the Indian cricket team’s jerseys.

In the midst of a difficult year, BYJU’S named Arjun Mohan as its India CEO. Close on the heels of him taking over the reins of the company, the edtech announced that it will have to let go of 4,000 employees. Not to mention, the edtech decacorn had already been laying off employees in small groups.

On December 6, it came to the fore that the startup had not submitted the PF of its staffers since August, even after deducting the same from their paycheques. BYJU’S made a similar folly last year too.  

Now, BYJU’S has scheduled an Annual General Meeting (AGM) on December 20, which is aimed at resolving a list of issues, including its much-awaited financial results for FY22. Although it has already posted an EBITDA loss of INR 2,253 Cr for FY22, much is still to be reported.

Under the pile of aforementioned troubles also lay the edtech’s legal tussle with its TLB investors, back-to-back valuation markdowns, several instances of misselling, and a likely sale of its subsidiary companies Great Learning and Epic by Byju Raveendran. 

As of now, the entire startup ecosystem seems to be closely keeping its eye on how the BYJU’S chapter will unfold in the upcoming year.

Financial Deception At GoMechanic & Mojocare 

In the early months of 2023, automobile after-sales startup GoMechanic, too, faced corporate governance crisis. Cofounder Amit Bhasin publicly admitted to committing “errors in judgement” regarding financial reporting while trying to pursue growth. 

The startup allegedly misled investors for years by showing fake numbers. GoMechanic was acquired by a consortium led by Lifelong Group, a majority shareholder in GoMechanic rival Servizzy for about INR 220 Cr. But major investors of GoMechanic, including Orios Venture Partners and Peak XV Partners, filed a joint complaint against the startup’s founders, leading to an FIR by the Delhi Police’s Economic Offences Wing. 

 In a similar story, healthtech startup Mojocare’sfounders, Ashwin Swaminathan and Rajat Gupta, too, confessed to cooking the books. 

This confession led to a change in leadership and eventual plans to shutter operations, returning capital to investors. 

India’s Very Own Fyre Festival For Startups 

Just three months into 2023, the patience of Indian founders was put to the test by the organisers of The World Startup Convention (WSC).

Promoted as India’s biggest funding festival by influencers such as Ankur Warikoo, Prafull Billore, Chetan Bhagat and Raj Shamani, the three-day event was supposed to host minister Nitin Gadkari, Tesla’s Elon Musk, Google’s Sundar Pichai, and the Crown Prince of Dubai as speakers from March 24 to March 26 in Greater Noida.

Much to everyone’s annoyance, the event proved to be a sham, triggering a clash as some attendees spent over INR 50 Lakh to become a sponsor of the event for the World Startup Convention.

While the organisers of the event, Luke Talwar and Arjun Chaudhary, denied any charges of cheating and duping the participants anywhere between INR 6,000 to INR 8,000 for a three-day pass, clashes between organisers and attendees led to police intervention at the venue.

Along with organisers Luke Talwar and Arjun Chaudhary, influencers like Ankur Warikoo and Chetan Bhagat were blamed for endorsing the event. 

At the time we had questioned — “Where is India’s influencer economy headed?” 

The  Broker Network Implosion 

In the middle of the year, 4B Networks, the third entrepreneurial stint of Housing.com founder Rahul Yadav, came into the headlines. The controversy started when its investor Info Edge initiated a forensic audit into the affairs of the proptech startup. 

As the investigation unfolded, from unsettled debts to multiple entities to an alleged illicit transfer of funds from Broker Network to two other companies associated with Rahul Yadav and his wife, Karishma Singh, several issues were revealed.

It turned out that the money from 4B Networks took a detour to Yadav’s holding company and then found its way to a company called Kult App, where Yadav’s wife played a big role. 

In November, Rahul Yadav was quite close to being put behind bars but had a close shave in an INR 50 Lakh cheque bounce case filed in May by an erstwhile Broker Network employee, Arun Singh Shekhawat. 

It must be noted that the Economic Offences Wing is also investigating two separate cases against Yadav, one of which is filed by Broker Network’s lead investor Info Edge, alleging an INR 288 Cr graft. In addition, employees of the company have also not been paid since September 2022.

Embroiled in multiple allegations of fraud, Yadav’s story once again shows how important it is for founders to have strong ethics in place.

The BharatPe-Ashneer Grover Brawl Intensified In 2023

The BharatPe-Ashneer Grover brawl continued to make headlines into 2023 as well. Topping the list of headlines was a criminal complaint against Grover, his wife Madhuri Jain Grover, and her family members, which turned into a full-blown FIR by Delhi Police’s Economic Offences Wing (EOW). 

Despite Grover’s consistent denial of allegations, a lookout circular led to the couple being stopped at the Delhi Airport. Alongside, the EOW’s probe allegedly uncovered payments to sham HR consultancies run by Madhuri Jain and her kin.

Already in the face of EOW questioning for allegedly syphoning funds from BharatPe, beleaguered former managing director Ashneer Grover landed himself in yet another legal soup just last month (November).

The fintech juggernaut filed a fresh case against its outspoken ex-MD in the Delhi High Court for publicly sharing the company’s confidential information on a social networking platform. The ex-MD had to apologise for the posts and was slapped with an INR 2 Lakh fine.

Mounting a multi-pronged legal offensive against the Grovers, BharatPe has initiated as many as 15 proceedings against the couple and their kin, including a civil suit for alleged embezzlement that seeks INR 88.67 Cr in damages from the duo.

The INR 200 Cr Wedding Aisle That Led To Mahadev Betting App Scam

In February 2023, the opulent INR 200 Cr wedding of Indian native Sourabh Chandrakar in Ras Al-Khaimah, the UAE, drew the attention of enforcement agencies. Hailing from his humble origins as a juice vendor in Chhattisgarh’s Bhilai, Chandrakar’s meteoric rise raised the eyebrows of many in the government as they began a full-scale investigation into his finances. 

Seven months later, the Enforcement Directorate unearthed the Mahadev app online betting scam, exposing Chandrakar and Ravi Uppal as its masterminds.  

In October, the ED filed a chargesheet, naming 14 persons, including Chandrakar and Uppal, before a PMLA court in Raipur, Chhattisgarh. The Mumbai Police later joined the probe, too, and booked 32 individuals during its investigation. 

Caught in between seem to be a clutch of prominent figures and Bollywood celebrities who have been interrogated and named in various chargesheets and complaints filed by both the police and the ED. 

Meanwhile, on December 23, it was reported that Uppal was detained in Dubai by the local police on the basis of a red notice issued by the Interpol at the behest of the enforcement directorate.

ZestMoney’s Saga Of Failed Acquisitions, Founder Troubles & Shut Down 

The journey of ZestMoney, once the BNPL poster child of India, came to an end after the management shocked its employees by asking them to stay at home from December 7.

The management had to pull the plug on the company after an internal funding round failed to materialise, as per sources. 

For the uninitiated, the cash-starved startup was fighting many battles — founders calling it quits, failed acquisition bids, regulatory hurdles and a severe slowdown in the core BNPL business. 

It is imperative to mention that ZestMoney once held its head high with a peak valuation of $455 Mn. However, soon the company fell into a debt trap due to growing NPAs, sub-par collections and a faulty business model. This was despite the company’s claim of catering to 17 Mn registered users. In FY22, ZestMoney’s losses bloated 3X YoY at INR 398.8 Cr due to a steep rise in expenses. 

Operating within a business model similar to BNPL players like LazyPay and Simpl, ZestMoney was sitting on an NPA rate exceeding 13%, way above the healthy BNPL loan default rate of 2-3%.

Earlier in the year, ZestMoney’s cofounders Lizzie Chapman, Priya Sharma, and Ashish Anantharaman stepped down. Following their exits, the new management took over and was in talks to raise funds but to no avail.

Did Sharks Ghost Founders? 

The popular TV show Shark Tank India has undeniably left a lasting impact on citizens, so much so that the show is one of the topics of discussion at the Indian dinner table.

However, the euphoria surrounding the show has been marred by allegations from young founders who have voiced concerns about the conduct of investors, aka ‘Sharks’. 

Many participants of Shark Tank India told Inc42 that the Sharks have deliberately delayed investments under various pretexts. The participants have also alleged that the Sharks are impolite in person and deride their business models even after promising investments.

Complicating matters further, as per the participants, is the absence of proper documentation of the funding commitments they get on-air, which makes it tough for them to seek legal recourse. Notably, verbal promises lack the legal weightage necessary for pursuing legal recourse.

In June, we were also told that Sony TV only assures of providing a platform, and there are no terms and conditions to protect our interest if judges renege on their pledge.

At the time, it also came to the fore that Sharks got defensive and reneged from their commitments after engaging in the due diligence processes of some of the show’s participants.

[Edited by Shishir Parasher & Vinaykumar Rai]

The post Disputes, Deception & Fibs: Revisiting Major Startup Controversies That Stirred Up A Storm In 2023 appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Last year, this time around, we remember mentioning how 2023 would be no different from the year in review (2022), which took jobs of more than 18K startup employees due to reasons galore. 

As expected, the layoff axe continued to slash employee headcounts at Indian startups, with over 17K jobs already lost as of December 8 this year. Essentially, the primary factors that played a macro role in making 2022 an attrition-heavy year found their way into 2023 as well.

For the uninitiated, the entire 2022 was laden with the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on the global economy, ailing markets, rampant inflation and the fear of a global recession. These, in turn, impacted investor sentiment, along with the fact that Indian startups had little to deliver but cash burns.

Long story short, according to the data collated by Inc42, more than 35K startup employees have lost their jobs since the onset of the funding winter in Q1 2022. However, if industry experts are to be believed, 5,000+ layoffs have gone unreported.

Moving on, leading the onslaught are BYJU’S, Ola, Unacademy, Blinkit, and WhiteHat Jr, which have shown doors to 13,740+ employees in the last two years. Interestingly, among these industry frontrunners in living the layoff dream, BYJU’S takes the podium with 6,500+ job cuts.

While BYJU’S, Ola, Unacademy, Blinkit and WhiteHat Jr together sacked an estimated 9,390 employees in 2022, BYJU’S, Skill-Lync, GoMechanic, ShareChat and ZestMoney made 6,075+ employees look for pastures new.

Now, we can either blame the ongoing funding winter for the meltdown in the startup job market or talk about the factors that have largely remained hidden in plain sight, adding more blue to the Indian startup gloom.

Two Attrition-Heavy Years: Who’s To Blame?

As per the Inc42 analysis, homegrown startups raised $8.67 Bn between January and November 2023 against $22 Bn and $27 Bn during the same time in 2022 and 2021, respectively.

Looking at the correction rate, which stands at 61% for 2022 and 68% for 2021, it is easy to blame the funding winter, which is the root cause of almost every anomaly in the Indian startup space.

However, if you are a regular reader of Inc42, you would know that we always try to look beyond the clichés in our endeavour to bring forth deeper analogies and equations working in the background.  

In our perusal to look beyond the funding winter, we learned that the world’s third-largest startup economy is also vulnerable to attrition caused by high work stress.

It is also imperative to mention that, unlike typical 9-5 office jobs, startups seek high levels of commitment, ownership, accountability and efficiency from their employees. “Therefore, several employees leave due to high stress and workload,” an industry expert said. 

According to a March 2023 EY report, the ecommerce, technology and related sectors – all startup-related segments – experienced attrition rates exceeding 20%, with an average involuntary turnover of 4.4% across segments.

Moving on, given that many similarities exist between startups and tech companies regarding employee skill sets, the high attrition rate in the two circles results from people leaving one domain to enter another.

Further, it is anybody’s guess that the state of the Indian startup workforce has been adversely impacted by geopolitical and macroeconomic developments over the past two years — rising energy and food prices, the US hitting its debt ceiling, the trade war between the US and China, the Russia-Ukraine war and the Palestine-Israel conflict.

Global inflation rose on the back of these developments and all these factors confected a reduced market liquidity. This has broken the confidence of VCs and PEs in Indian startups, making them think twice before embarking on the route fraught with uncomfortable twists and turns. 

As such, grappling with falling revenues and mounting losses, capital-hungry Indian startups have been sacking employees just to extend their cash runway for a bit longer.

Adding insult to injury, the emergence of generative AI has been yet another dent in the image of the Indian startup corporate culture. With the rapid adoption of AI, industry experts see consumer-facing roles being rendered obsolete soon. 

Startup Turnarounds Made Employees Pay Heavily In 2023

According to Inc42’s Indian Startup Layoff Tracker, which monitors startup layoffs across the country, nearly two-thirds of the layoffs that took place during the year (2023) were attributed to restructuring or turnaround efforts by various Indian startups. 

In terms of numbers, nearly 11K employees have been impacted by restructuring exercises so far this year. Going by the available data, only about one-fifth of the laid-off employees lost their jobs due to cost-cutting measures. This number ought to be much higher, but the current analysis only considers the official reasons for layoffs provided by the startups.

Meanwhile, during the year, late stage Indian startups accounted for more than half of the total layoffs conducted in the Indian startup realm, witnessing a respite from 2022 when late stage startup layoffs accounted for approximately 70% of the total job cuts.

On average, a late stage startup sacked 14% of its workforce in a typical layoff exercise in 2023 compared to 265 growth stage and 41% at the early stage. It is imperative to note that industry experts see the layoff trend mirroring stage-wise funding trends observed during the year. 

According to Inc42 data, growth stage funding fell 38% during the first half of 2023. Meanwhile, late stage funding increased by 30% YoY, which might be a reason why late stage startups saw fewer layoffs this year than last year.

Edtech, Consumer Services, Enterprise Tech Employees Among The Worst-Hit

Among the 11 startup segments that saw layoffs during 2023, edtech, consumer services and enterprise tech saw the most job losses. Two of every three startup employees laid off during the year worked in one of the aforementioned segments.

Refusing to budge, edtech continued to be the startup employees’ worst nightmare, accounting for more than 40% of all layoffs during the year at more than 6,758. BYJU’S, the edtech behemoth, alone accounted for nearly a quarter of the total layoffs recorded by Inc42 during the year so far.

Consumer services retained its unfortunate label alongside edtech as being among the top segments impacted by layoffs for two consecutive years. This year, 11 startups in the sector fired over 2,105 employees. Across the past two years, 19 startups in the space let go of nearly 7,400 people.

Enterprise tech became an unexpected entry into the startup layoff realm as 18 startups from the segment fired over 1,700 employees during the year. Troubled by the fall in enterprise spending across the globe, the segment’s share in handing out pink slips jumped from 2.6% in 2022 to 10.3% in 2023.

Will 2024 Be Any Better?

The last few years have been quite paradoxical. While we have observed investors going gaga over the charm of Indian founders, we have also witnessed them tightening their purse strings in no time.

For instance: The nine months between July 2021 and March 2022 were witness to the most intense funding activity the Indian startup ecosystem had ever seen. In just three quarters, homegrown startups raised $44 Bn.

In contrast, the nine months between July 2022 and March 2023 saw the worst layoffs during any time in the history of the Indian startup ecosystem. During this period, 63 Indian startups fired 12,214 employees.

However, the only common trend in 2023 has been investors’ distastefulness in making vanity startup bets, despite accumulating billions of dollars in dry powder.

As analysts continue to sound caution over unsustainable business models and growth trajectories, Indian startups seem to be rethinking their approach and strategy.

On a different note, rating agency Fitch delivered a mix of good and bad news earlier this week. While the good news is that the US economy has managed to avoid a recession, the bad news projects the world’s growth to fall sharply to 2.1% in 2024 from 2.9% in 2023.

Predicting the future is a fool’s errand. However, we can only expect 2024 to be the year of revival, with global supply chains returning to normalcy and core inflation cooling off faster than anticipated.

However, given that the current funding scenario reminds one of the pre-pandemic funding era, employee retrenchment is an anomaly we may see Indian startups bracing in yet another painful year on the employee front.

The post Two Years, 35,000+ Job Cuts: Indian Startup Layoffs Continue, Will 2024 Bring Change? appeared first on Inc42 Media.

It’s a season of pain for even some of the most storied venture capital firms in India, and Omidyar Network is just the latest one to succumb.

The firm, which has backed the likes of 1mg, Bounce, Indifi, ZestMoney, Drinkprime, DealShare, Vedantu, Pratilipi among other startups, is shutting down its India operations.

While the announcement has come this week, Omidyar Network India will completely transition out of the Indian market by the end of 2024.

“After several months of deliberation, it has been decided that Omidyar Network India will stop making new investments and will completely transition out of the market by the end of 2024. Over the next two months, the board and leadership team will assess how best to manage the organisation’s portfolio while recognising the long and trusted partnerships that the Omidyar Network India team has built,” a statement from the firm said.

Active in India since 2009, Omidyar is among the handful of VCs that have seen the startup ecosystem grow to its current size from a nascent part of the economy.

There’s some speculation of a division within the Omidyar Network India (ONI) management to further separate the Indian investment vehicle from Omidyar Network’s global investment arm. But at the moment, the firm remains tight-lipped about the next steps.

What we do know is that in a conversation with some founders of its portfolio, ONI has set a 3-5 year horizon for exiting its investments and the firm is likely to also transition out of many boards where its representatives are currently directors.

“The leadership had a short call with some of us portfolio founders and informed us about the next steps, which included the estimated exit horizons and also boardroom changes,” one founder who was present on the call told Inc42.

The founder said Omidyar was clear that there would be no change in management at least until December 2024 and indicated that the firm is not likely to be in a hurry to liquidate its assets, even though that will be the primary focus area.

But before we look at the implications on its portfolio, it’s important to understand what exactly forced Omidyar to quit the Indian market, and as we will see, there are multiple factors at play here, including the firm’s problems with Indian law enforcement. The fund managers and partners we spoke to called it a “sudden-yet-expected” departure.

Omidyar’s India Experience

Backed by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, Omidyar Network India is a veteran in the Indian startup ecosystem, having invested in new-age ventures since 2009 onwards.

While its core focus has been on impact investing in nonprofits and grassroots organisations, it has also branched out to back startups in the mobility, fintech, edtech and other for-profit sectors, and has invested through three separate entities from its early days.

As per its website, the company has a total AUM of $673 Mn with over 120 portfolio companies. Over 70% of this corpus has been invested in private for-profit ventures.

In 2023, Omidyar invested in Indifi’s Series E round, as well as Series A rounds of SatSure, Sequretek, Kiwi, DGV and ZestMoney, which incidentally is in the process of dissolution. Most recently, Omidyar Network India led dairy fintech startup Digivriddhi Technologies’ (DGV) INR 50 Cr ($6 Mn) Series A funding round.

Over the years, ONI has also seen exits from the likes of WhiteHat Jr, Dailyhunt, Pickrr, NowFloats, Credlfow, IndusOS and 1mg, many of which were acquired by leading companies. Indeed, its exit track record is healthy for a firm of its vintage, given that even the likes of Tiger Global and others have struggled to extract high returns in recent years.

For instance, WhiteHat Jr was acquired by BYJU’S in August 2020, netting a 17X return for Omidyar. Besides this, 1mg was acquired by Tata Digital in June 2021 in a high-profile deal; NowFloats was acquired by Reliance Industries for $20 Mn and IndusOS by PhonePe for a reported valuation of $60 Mn in 2022.

Despite these positive outcomes, it seems Omidyar has lost patience with the Indian market. Or was its hand forced by external factors that are not related to its portfolio, as is the speculation in the immediate aftermath of the announcement?

Why Omidyar Is Quitting India

The undeniable fact is that Omdiyar’s track record of exits has also come alongside controversies related to its investments in non-profit organisations, some of which have come under the radar for the source of funding.

For one, Omidyar Network India came under fire in 2021 when it was placed on a watch list by the home ministry, which came with restrictions on the foreign donations it could accept.

Omidyar was named as an accused by the Central Bureau of Intelligence (CBI) for allegedly conspiring to illegally facilitate the registration and renewal of Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA) licences. FCRA licences are mandatory when receiving funds from foreign sources for charitable purposes.

Additionally, Omidyar has come under fire from members of the current ruling party in India for being associated with alleged iPhone hacking warning messages and its monetary contribution to entities that are said to be working against the interests of India.

Moreover, in June 2021, SEBI alleged that Franklin Templeton’s Asia Pacific head Vivek Kudva and his wife Roopa — ONI’s former managing partner — had violated insider trading laws and barred them from investing in the capital markets for one year.

While this is unrelated to Omidyar’s investments in startups, having the country head named in such a case would undoubtedly have carried some reputational risk for the firm.

The challenges with law enforcement and the general crackdown on FCRA violations by the Indian government have coincided with some pressure on Omidyar’s portfolio in 2022 and 2023.

Many of its portfolio companies have, in recent times, come under stress due to the tough market conditions as well as a paucity of funds. Doubtnut, for instance, was acquired by Allen Career Institute in a distress deal. Doubtnut is said to have been acquired for $10 Mn, despite raising more than $50 Mn in its lifetime.

One ONI portfolio founder told Inc42 that the firm is likely to have booked a loss of over 75% on its investment in Doubtnut. The state of other portfolio companies is also not great. The likes of Bounce, Dealshare, Healofy and others have come under scrutiny for weak business models, founder exits as well as slow revenue growth.

Interestingly, the leadership situation at the firm is less than clear after Kudva’s exit. One noteworthy point is that Omidyar’s decision-making layers have dedicated directors as well as partners. It’s not clear exactly who is calling the shots.

On the director level, the firm has leaders such as Amol Warange, Aditya Misra, Lakshmi Pattabi Raman, Sarvesh Kanodia, Sushant Kumar and Treasa Mathew. At the same time, the firm also has partners such as Siddharth Nautiyal, Badri Pillapakkam, Mahesh Krishnamurthy, and Shilpa Kumar.

This leadership structure is largely due to the fact that Omidyar’s focus was split between private investments as well as funding and grants to nonprofits. However, many VCs believe this is an antiquated structure and often results in delays in investment decisions.

And finally, there is the changing landscape of impact investing in India. When Omidyar arrived in India, its impact investing focus was on grassroots organisations and community-led MSMEs. But today, impact investing is moving into areas such as manufacturing and large-scale production which offer higher potential for employment and economic growth. As such, Omidyar’s thesis is perhaps also a bit outdated in the Indian context and might be better suited for other geographies.

VCs Feel The Heat 

Portfolio problems are of course not exclusive to Omidyar — other VC firms have seen partners exit by the droves and are in the process of dissolution in some form or the other. We have seen changes at firms such as Lightbox, Orios VP, Together Fund and others in recent weeks.

Tiger Global partner Scott Shleifer’s comments earlier this year about the lack of big returns from India also signalled a change of heart for some of the biggest investors in India. Plus, there is a great deal of competition in the early-stage ecosystem where Omidyar likes to operate.

As we have reported throughout this year, the changes at the partner level at VC firms is largely a result of poor performance of the funds and pressure from limited partners. However, this does not seem to be the case with Omidyar, according to the founder and CEO of a unicorn startup in Omidyar’s portfolio.

In the case of Omidyar, the firm is likely to have faced little to no pressure from its limited partners given the fact that most of the firm’s invested corpus comprised the personal wealth of founder Omidyar.

Another factor is that India’s foreign direct investment (FDI) rules excluded Mauritius from the list of geographies exempted from the so-called angel tax. This meant that ONI, which invested through a special purpose vehicle named ON Mauritius, would be subject to tax action in relation to the gains in valuation when investing in startups.

According to the founding partner of a Bengaluru-based early-stage firm, the word within VC circles was that a lot of firms are likely to quit the Indian market due to portfolio trouble and the changing landscape around investment thesis particularly for emerging technologies.

“While this is the moment for impact investing in India, Omidyar’s troubles with CBI were well-known. Most VCs are only surprised by how quickly the firm has announced its exit, not the fact that it has,” the partner mentioned above added.

Of course, the exit of a major investor (at least in the case of some startups) is likely to be a headache for the startup founders. What does Omidyar’s exit mean for its portfolio?

The Portfolio Impact

“In the call with founders, Omidyar was clear that the Indian ecosystem is maturing and that it no longer sees room for the role it played in the past decade. They called it a decision taken by the global leadership which would see the focus shift to other geographies,” one Delhi NCR-based portfolio founder told Inc42.

Naturally, we wanted to know what it meant for some of the companies that had already raised significant amounts from Omidyar in the past year. The likes of Indifi are at an inflection point, having also reached profitability, while others such as Vedantu, Bounce and Dealshare are said to be transitioning to better unit economics. Will Omidyar’s departure have ripple effects that disrupt this momentum?

“The biggest impact will be on the startups which have just raised a seed or Series A round from Omidyar. The exit of one major backer is a signal to the rest of the market, but again this depends on the stage of the company and how much stake Omidyar owns in the company,” the founder quoted above added.

On the positive side, another founder pointed out that given that the firm has announced its intention to exit the portfolio, it will likely make it easier to execute secondary share sales. “Typically investors are okay with a discount when they want to exit, so secondary sales might even see a discount of 40%-50% in some cases. This means founders can buy back some shares at a low rate if they have the capital,” added another Bengaluru-based founder in Omidyar’s portfolio.

Ultimately, M&As are also a possibility for some startups that are staring at an uncertain future. Given the fact that ONI’S portfolio includes some unicorns such as Dealshare and Vedantu, these startups could even acquire some of the distressed startups in the firm’s portfolio.

Whatever the fate of the portfolio startups, Omidyar’s exit is a major signal for the Indian VC and startup ecosystem. Will this be the first of the old guard to give way to a new breed of investors?

There’s also a positive undercurrent in the Indian market for domestic investors and increasing participation of HNIs and Indian corporates in the VC ecosystem. Omidyar’s global DNA runs against this grain. But many in the ecosystem feel its exit from India is nevertheless sudden and there could be a domino effect in store.

The post Behind Omidyar Network’s ‘Sudden-Yet-Expected’ India Exit appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Investment firm Omidyar Network, a backer of leading Indian startups such as 1mg, Bounce, Indifi, DealShare, HealthKart, and Pratilipi, is shutting down its India operations.

Omidyar Network India confirmed the development in a statement, saying it will “completely transition out of the market by the end of 2024”.

“After several months of deliberation, it has been decided that Omidyar Network India will stop making new investments and will completely transition out of the market by the end of 2024. Over the next two months, the board and leadership team will assess how best to manage the organisation’s portfolio while recognising the long and trusted partnerships that the Omidyar Network India team has built,” the statement said.

TechCrunch was the first to report the development.

A source told the publication that the impact investment firm’s India team wants to reunite and raise money externally to start a new fund but cautioned that it’s too early and the plans may change and deliberations may fail.

Backed by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, the social impact-focussed investment firm had about $673 Mn cumulative assets under management and its portfolio startups reached 735 Mn people cumulatively till July 2023, as per an investor presentation.

Most recently, Omidyar Network India led dairy fintech startup Digivriddhi Technologies’ (DGV) INR 50 Cr ($6 Mn) Series A funding round.

Last month, fintech startup Kiwi also raised $13 Mn in a Series A funding round led by Omidyar Network India. 

The investment firm has backed businesses across areas including education and employability, emerging tech, financial inclusion and well being and property inclusivity. 

While India’s startup ecosystem is booming, concerns have been raised about the returns made by venture investors in the country, especially amidst the funding winter over the last two years.

Omidyar Network said in its statement that the decision to pull out of India was heavily informed by the significant change in context and the growth in the economic landscape that the India-based team has experienced since first making investments in 2010. 

“Today, there is more Indian-led philanthropic and venture capital than ever before, the country has a vibrant startup sector, and several funds now have a middle and lower-middle income focus as part of their investment strategy. From its outset, the Omidyar Network India team identified these system shifts as critical to impact and worked diligently to help catalyse this change,” the investment firm said.

It is also pertinent to note that 2023 hasn’t been very smooth for Omidyar Network as its portfolio startup ZestMoney, a major name in BNPL that was once valued at $450 Mn, had to shut shop. Its another portfolio startup Doubtnut, which had raised over $50 Mn, also got acquired by Allen Career Institute for $10 Mn.

The development also comes at a time when the venture capital ecosystem in India seems to be going through a churn. A number of partners and fund manages have quit venture capital firms in recent times to either launch their own funds or startups. 

On Monday, it was reported that Lightrock India partner and chief financial officer (CFO) Kushal Agrawal will be stepping down from this role at the end of the ongoing month.

The post DealShare, Indifi Backer Omidyar Network To Exit India appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Consumer Affairs Secretary Rohit Kumar Singh has asked the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) to address issues related to liability in case of delivery of wrong/ defective products. 

Speaking at ‘Deloitte Growth with Impact Government Summit’, Singh said it is important to address the liability issues to provide satisfactory services to the consumers, news agency PTI reported.

“If I order through an app of a bank through Amazon and buy it from a seller located elsewhere and I get the wrong phone, then who is liable? So the issue of liability… I keep telling Mr T Koshy (ONDC CEO) that you have to address the issue of liability otherwise this thing is not going to work,” Singh was quoted as saying. 

ONDC is a private non-profit platform backed by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT). It was incorporated on December 31, 2021, with an aim to democratise ecommerce in the country.

In April last year, the government soft launched ONDC in five cities, including Delhi NCR, Bengaluru, Bhopal, Shillong, and Coimbatore. Since then, the network has grown by leaps and bounds. While it began with food and grocery delivery, the platform has now also onboarded partners for electronics, fashion, and mobility services. 

Recently, Koshi told Inc42 that ONDC was looking to venture into the financial products and services segment. There were also recent reports about ONDC’s entry into skill-based services such as appliance repair and teaching assistance.

“I hope ONDC becomes a success, but in the law where does ONDC fit in? It is neither the seller nor the buyer. But If I am buying through the app…if something goes wrong, there are five parts of the chain (in ONDC supply chain), then who is liable,” said Singh at the event today.

He said that if something goes to court, every time the liability will come to the government as the latter is a part of it.

“Before things like ONDC become mammoth and huge, the issue of liability must be addressed,” he added.

As per the new agency’s report, an official said that ONDC is working to provide a system to the consumers so that grievance redressal is done properly. 

Meanwhile, Redseer said in a recent report that ONDC is poised to push growth in the ecommerce space across sectors and potentially generate $250-300 Bn in gross merchandise value by 2030.

The post ONDC Needs To Address Liability Issue To Succeed: Consumer Affairs Secretary appeared first on Inc42 Media.

The United States’ decision to impose a new set of restrictions on the export of leading-edge semiconductor chips and equipment to China will significantly impact growth and earnings prospects for many companies. More importantly, the ripple effects will be felt far and wide.

The geopolitical backdrop to such measures is a complex tapestry of tensions, trade wars, and global conflicts. As tensions rise in different regions, the implications of geopolitical decisions are no longer confined to diplomatic circles. 

Instead, they reverberate throughout the business world, forcing companies to adapt swiftly. The geopolitical winds of change close market opportunities, create new ones, reshape supply chains, and incentivize / disincentivise different players in various markets. 

This underscores the necessity for companies to factor in policy and geopolitics more than ever before. This applies even more to startups.

Why Startups Win

Startups win against incumbents on nimbleness, agility, and fresh starts. They typically have better alignment in RPPs (resources, processes, and priorities) and are quicker to realign these with changing circumstances.

This combined with their ability to innovate from the ground up and focus on new markets (normally unserved or over-served customers), provides opportunities for disrupting industries.

It is critical that startups extend this agility and nimbleness to factoring geopolitics and policy in their decision making. An expanded consideration set should encompass not only their immediate ecosystems (of customers, suppliers, employees etc.) but the larger narrative and headwinds / tailwinds.

Identifying Levers of Policy

To factor the influence of geopolitics and policy, it is essential to understand the levers that governments deploy to influence / alter markets. These levers can be broadly categorised into six key areas:

• Incentives: Governments often offer incentives linked to particular activities (e.g., exports, investments, employment) or sectors (semiconductors, advanced cell manufacturing etc.)
• Public Procurement: Government procurement decisions adapt to global trade dynamics, domestic supply capabilities etc. potentially favoring domestic or preferred suppliers.
• Tariff and Non-Tariff Barriers: Global trade dynamics and industrial policy lead to alterations in trade and tariff barriers, directly impacting cost and availability. For instance, governments may impose tariffs on imports of particular goods, creating market advantages for domestic industries in specific sectors.
• Taxes: Tax policies are adjusted in response to evolving industrial policy, fiscal position etc. and can influence investment decisions, foreign capital, profitability, and competitiveness of industry.
• Standards: Revisions in standards and regulations shape industries by encouraging innovation, restricting outdated practices, and regularising industries.
• Trusted Value Chains: Governments may emphasise/enforce trusted value chains particularly for critical infrastructure to increase supply chain resilience and security, opening doors for companies that meet specific criteria.

Opportunities In India

We can apply this framework to the Indian context and see how policy has shaped market opportunities in the recent past. 

With the global realignment of supply chains (China Plus One) and the aspiration to develop domestic capability and capacity (Atmanirbharta), the Indian Government has deployed these policy levers at different stages in a bid to create domestic design and manufacturing ecosystems. 

While tariffs, standards and public procurement have been leveraged to disincentivise imports, incentives and favorable tax policies have been deployed to incentivise domestic goods. This has been most prominent in consumer electronics, electric vehicles, pharmaceuticals, and green energy.

With these ecosystems being built ground up while being anchored by global majors, there are opportunities across the value chain in design, manufacturing, recycling etc. 

A few low-hanging fruits include the software defined vehicle (SDV) stack, power electronics for industrial and automotive, IDH for consumer electronics, and grid forming systems for RE.

In Conclusion

In a world where geopolitics and policy significantly impact business operations, startups must adapt to survive and thrive. 

By understanding the levers of policy used by governments, startups can identify white spaces in the market and seize emerging opportunities quickly. 

To remain competitive, startups must not only act swiftly but also be forward looking, anticipating future course of policy. In doing so, they ensure continued success in a dynamic, ever-evolving world.

The post Geopolitics, Government Policy, And Startups appeared first on Inc42 Media.

In the constantly evolving ecommerce landscape, direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands struggle to stand out among a host of options available to consumers.

To achieve excellence and success in this highly competitive segment, designing a compelling brand identity, creating a seamless online experience, and executing impactful marketing strategies are essential. 

Let’s delve into crucial strategies to propel your D2C brand towards thriving success.

Creating A Distinctive Brand Identity

Building a successful D2C brand begins with designing a unique and resonant identity. Your brand identity should incorporate every aspect of your brand’s personality, including the logo, website design, and overall essence portrayed through your marketing efforts.

 It is also essential to understand your target audience and their specific requirements to create a brand that truly resonates with them. 

Designing a catchy and memorable logo and brand name that leaves a lasting impression in the minds of consumers can go a long way in this regard.

Designing A User-Friendly Interface

Your website serves as the virtual store for your Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) brand. Therefore, ensuring that it delivers a seamless experience to your consumers is imperative. 

To accomplish this, designing a user-friendly interface that facilitates effortless transactions is important. An uncluttered and visually appealing website layout that enhances user experience can do wonders in this regard.

Furthermore, it is essential to use precise and jargon-free language across all website segments for consumers to understand effortlessly.

Defining Your Marketing Objectives

Marketing plays a pivotal role in pulling traffic and driving conversions, and a well-crafted strategy that caters to your target audience can significantly enhance brand visibility and engagement. It is also essential to define your audience accurately and set clear marketing goals. 

Furthermore, consistently tracking and analysing the marketing metrics can help optimise your strategies and identify rewarding measures.

Ensuring Exceptional Customer Service

Customer loyalty is built on superior customer service, which plays an elementary role in nurturing lasting relationships and ensuring repeat business. 

Delivering robust training to your customer service team can help them manage diverse scenarios efficiently.

Delivering swift and clear responses to customer queries is essential in exhibiting that their concerns are valued and that you care about their satisfaction. 

By prioritising communication transparency and actively working towards resolving any issues, you can build a strong foundation of trust and loyalty with your customers.

Emphasising Quality And Innovation

Fostering confidence and customer loyalty is significant for your D2C brand. To accomplish this, you need to consistently provide high-quality products or services. Keep innovating and improving while staying up-to-date with market trends and consumer preferences.

Invest in research and development to ensure that your offerings align with consumers’ evolving requirements.

Also, consider embracing sustainability and ethical practices to not miss out on the environmentally conscious consumer segment. 

Be honest in your messaging, illustrate your commitment to quality and innovation, and do not hesitate to highlight any product advancements or improvements to build trust with your customers.

To thrive in the competitive market of D2C commerce, brands must not only execute strategies diligently but also stay agile in response to market shifts. 

Flexibility and adaptation are crucial for continuous refinement and evolution, and keeping up with consumer preferences and industry trends is of utmost importance. 

Embracing change as an opportunity for growth and consistently optimizing brand strategies will help D2C brands stay ahead of the curve.

The post Five Tips To Make Your D2C Brand A Huge Success appeared first on Inc42 Media.

A landmark fine by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) on Google in late 2022 set into motion a series of events that echoed well into 2023. The domino effect led to a turbulence that hit Google’s ship, a force to reckon with and a digital juggernaut. 

Emulating its global operations, 2023 turned out to be a tumultuous year for the big tech major in India as well. The CCI penalty emboldened Indian startups to take the company to courts and even paved the way for the homegrown ecosystem to wrest control of a key industry body (IAMAI) from Google.

Piling on top of these issues were other anti-competitive cases brewing in the news aggregation and the smart television space. 

Besides, as a flurry of legislation, centred on the country’s digital ecosystem, took shape this year, Google found itself in the crosshairs of the government. Be it rap from authorities for failure to crack the whip on fake news or the emergence of deepfakes, the year turned out to be a trying time for the big tech giant.

Macroeconomic headwinds too hit the company as layoffs brought bad press for the big tech giant.

Notwithstanding these challenges, Google continued to focus on India, its biggest market globally in terms of users. 

From chief executive officer (CEO) Sundar Pichai’s bonhomie with Prime Minister Narendra Modi to moving some of the production of Pixel smartphones to India, Google left no stone unturned to tout its India push. 

The year also saw Google bolster its fintech ambitions while rolling out new AI offerings for its Indian audiences. While 2023 indeed was, in some sense, a mixed bag for the company, unease prevailed among the company’s top leadership over regulatory strife and legal cases stuck in limbo.

Google Caught In The Great Indian Legal Limbo

As the competition watchdog issued a landmark antitrust judgement against Google in October 2022, little was known that it would stir up a big storm for the company. 

The CCI slapped two separate fines, totalling over INR 2,200 Cr, on Google for abusing dominance in the Android devices market and over its Play Store policies. It also directed the US-based major to undertake sweeping reforms to its operations in the country. 

Refusing to take the order lying down, the company appealed the decision before the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT). 

As cases dragged on, Google was forced to change course and instituted a slew of changes to India operations. It made some changes to its agreements with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and even announced a new user choice billing system (UCBS), which slashed developer commissions to 11-26%.

However, as Google began rolling out new policy changes to comply with the CCI rules, it met an unexpectedly tough adversary — Indian startups. 

First on the menu were public statements by Indian startup founders, trashing the new billing policy and equating it with British-era ‘Lagaan’. Some even termed Google a threat to the country’s startup ecosystem. 

What followed was Indian startups banding together to file cases against Google’s UCBS in Delhi High Court and Madras High Court. The homegrown players even approached the NCLAT and other stakeholders to pitch their case against the new policy.

As this saga played out, many founders were irked by the silence of industry body Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) on the matter. Consequently, the startups trained their guns on the industry body, which, as per many founders, was controlled by big tech executives. 

The aftermath saw Indian founders participate in huge numbers in the IAMAI’s elections and wrest its control from Google representatives – a small win for the Indian startup ecosystem.

In the middle of all this, it was the regulatory standoff that seemed to be the biggest trouble in Google India’s paradise.

Google’s Regulatory Pitfalls In India

A recurring theme of Google’s operations in India has been its behind-the-scenes, if not always public, skirmishes with the government. As the government undertook the overhaul of key digital laws in 2023, Google found itself in the middle of the action. 

While the amended IT Rules brought the safe harbour protections into question, the Telecommunication Bill hinted at the possibility of regulation of its OTT communication apps. The Digital Data Protection Act proposed an elaborate set of homework, hefty fines and additional compliance burden for the Sundar Pichai-led company.

The emerging threats such as deepfakes as well as misinformation, ahead of 2024 general elections, has also put the company in the crosshairs of the union government. 

In a bid to tide over this, the company has largely resorted to its time-tested strategy of engaging with authorities behind closed doors, partnering with the Centre on a slew of initiatives, and emboldening its Make in India push. 

Be it the production of Pixel smartphones in India or launching accelerator programmes for Indian startups, in partnership with MeitY, Google pitched itself as a force dedicated to the cause of the Indian digital economy. 

Meanwhile, the company continued to shore up its fintech ambitions, looking to capitalise on the burgeoning number of Indians joining the digital fold. 

The India Ambition Scales Up

Google continued to heavily scale up operations to capture a bigger pie of the Indian digital economy, which is projected to soar to a market size of $1 Tn by 2025. 

Diversifying from offering mere digital payments services, the big tech major forayed into the financial services segment. In partnership with Indian banks and startups, Google Pay, starting 2023, began to offer merchant credit lines and sachet loans for consumers.

With an eye on accelerating its fintech growth, Pichai also announced that the company would set up its global fintech operation centre at the GIFT City in Gujarat. 

Capitalising on GenAI, the flavour of the season, Google announced a spree of AI-focussed launches this year. Be it Bard or visual search, the tech giant rolled out a host of AI-led products and services for its Indian users even as competition intensified from Sam Altman-led OpenAI. 

Meanwhile, it continued to feel the heat of the global economic meltdown that unfolded in 2023. As a result, Google undertook a cost cutting exercise to streamline operations which resulted in axing of more than 450 jobs in India. 

The Mountain View-based company also shut down and announced the discontinuation of a slew of products and services, such as Google Podcasts, Google Stadia, and Google Jamboard, to focus on actual money-minting products. 

In India, YouTube also shut down its live social commerce app Simsim, just two years after the streaming giant splurged millions of dollars to acquire the Indian startup. 

What 2024 Holds For Google?

After a turbulent 2022 and 2023, Google has work cut out for itself in 2024. With general elections around the corner, Google could be in the spotlight as apprehensions grow over misinformation and negative use of generative AI.

While its legal troubles and standoffs with government authorities are expected to continue well into next year, the company could be hoping for some relief from Indian courts as it charts its path ahead in India.

The company will also continue to pump millions of dollars to roll out GenAI offerings, especially its GPT-4 rival Gemini. The suite of AI products will largely cater to consumer-facing products while it straddles potential regulations for the emerging technology. 

The world is also expected to return to sanity as macroeconomic pressures ease, paving the way for healthier revenues for the big tech giant. While the antitrust rulings are expected to continue, the company will continue to scale up its presence in India, focussing more on vernacular media and tapping into the growing Indian population that wants to access the internet in their own language.

The post 2023 In Review: A Year When Digital Goliath Google Met Its Adversaries In India appeared first on Inc42 Media.

For decades, the private equity and venture capital (PE/VC) sector has been characterised by a lack of gender diversity. A historical glance reveals the industry’s roots in western markets, where it took shape with strong ties to old family wealth. 

Since finance has been a male-dominated arena for centuries now, the reigns of the PE/VC industry have been predominantly with men. A noticeable shift has occurred in the last decade, with an increasing number of women making their mark and reshaping the dynamics of this ecosystem.

Among the earliest trailblazers who challenged the traditional norms was Muriel Faye Siebert. Her groundbreaking achievement as the first woman to own a seat on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in 1967 marked a turning point in the industry’s history. 

This accomplishment, along with her distinction as the first woman to lead an NYSE member firm, set a precedent for future generations looking to break into the finance sector. Just a few years later, in the 1980s, Barbara Vogelstein made a mark by becoming the first-ever woman venture capital partner. 

As a partner at Warburg Pincus, Vogelstein’s career trajectory shattered barriers and demonstrated that gender should never be a limitation in pursuing success in the PE/VC landscape. 

A Shift Towards Gender Inclusivity

While we have had a few exceptional women break through, gender representation of the industry continues to be skewed in favor of men. According to Preqin, the proportion of women working in the asset class was 19.7% in 2019 and 20.3% in 2020. Representation of women in the industry went from almost negligible in the 1960s to one-fifth of the industry’s workforce in 2020. Progress, though slow.

Recent years, especially on the back of the #MeToo movement, saw heightened awareness about DEI that has catalysed action in companies across the world. The PE/VC industry has not been untouched by this increased focus on DEI, especially when it comes to gender diversity. 

Women are gradually garnering senior positions in the industry, and more than before, are venturing out to raise their own funds. While women investors are making their place in the PE/VC industry, gender disparities still exist.

The Unconscious Gender Bias Still Exists 

70% of PE/VC fund managers have all-male senior leadership teams. Only 2.4% of women are founding partners with control over the firm’s capital. And the percentage of women across the industry workforce continues to hover around 20%, having seen a marginal dip in pandemic years.

Interestingly, women’s participation in PE/VC is much behind that in traditionally male-dominated industries like manufacturing and infrastructure. While manufacturing boasts 25% women in leadership, around 19% of leadership positions in the infrastructure sector are held by women. 

Representation of women in leadership roles in the PE/VC industry is much lower at 14%. Even though gender inclusivity is becoming a practice across sectors, there continue to be traces of deep-rooted biases that portray men as better suited for managing finances and financial ventures.  

Research and experience have established that women  are as skilled at handling startups, finance, capital and business decisions.  Per the report “Creating 10X Women Founders in India”, 18% of India’s 28,000 active technological start-ups had female founders or cofounders. 

Per the same report, 18% of unicorns in India have female founders or cofounders. The report also shows that female founders have the same success rate as male founders and that women led unicorns provide employment and income at a similar rate as those founded by men. Point made. 

Taking this forward, research has also established that diversity leads to better decision making and consequently, to better financial performance. Per the IFC 2019 report, companies with diversity leadership teams gets to higher valuations in a shorter period of time. 

Breaking The Glass Ceiling

It is clear that fostering inclusive growth in the PE/VC and startup ecosystem will lead to better overall outcomes, both financial and non-financial. It is not surprising that key stakeholders and especially institutional investors are increasing the emphasis on enhancing DEI efforts. 

Firms in the PE/VC space have introduced initiatives to build the diversity agenda in their teams and portfolio companies – including increased female representation on boards, access to mentorship programs for women, and adopting gender diversity as a priority for the workforce.  

As we look to the future, it is crucial to continue dismantling the barriers that hold women back. Supporting women in key decision-making roles, nurturing their entrepreneurial spirit, and providing equal opportunities will foster an environment where women can thrive. 

With increased representation and concerted efforts, the PE/VC industry has the potential to become a catalyst for inclusive growth, driving stronger economic outcomes and creating an equitable and diverse ecosystem.

The rise of women in the PE/VC industry is not just a matter of statistics; it signifies a fundamental reimagining of the industry’s composition and culture. The time for change is now, and together, we can build a stronger and more inclusive entrepreneurial landscape.

The post The Rise Of Women In The PE/VC Industry appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Even as the Indian stock markets touched their all-time highs this week, new-age tech stocks largely continued to witness range-bound movements and selling pressure was visible in most of these counters.

Eleven out of the 19 new-age tech stocks under Inc42’s coverage slumped between 0.2% and over 25% this week, with Paytm being the biggest loser.

Others, including Nykaa, CarTrade Technologies, PB Fintech, Fino Payments Bank, and Yudiz, also saw a downfall.

While Zaggle remained unchanged on a week-on-week basis, only seven new-age tech stocks gained this week. 

Tracxn Technologies was the biggest gainer this week, rising 3.3%, even as Elevation Capital offloaded more than 15.66 Lakh shares of the company via block deals worth INR 15.09 Cr on Friday.

Meanwhile, DroneAcharya, Zomato, and IndiaMart gained over 3% each this week, while ideaForge and Nazara Technologies rose over 2% each.

Following Fireside Ventures’ partial stake sale in the recently-listed Mamaearth, the D2C unicorn’s shares remained almost flat (0.1% gain) on a weekly basis. 

In the broader market, benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty50 gained in the first three sessions of the week following the BJP’s victory in assembly elections in the Hindi heartland states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Chattisgarh. The indices dipped slightly on Thursday but regained momentum to end Friday’s trading session at an all-time high. 

The rally during the last trading session of the week came following the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) raising its FY24 GDP growth forecast to 7%.

Overall, Sensex gained 3.47% to end the week at 69,825.6 and Nifty50 rose 3.5% to end at 20,969.4. 

It must be noted that the RBI kept the repo rate unchanged at 6.5% over concerns about inflation.

“Despite the RBI maintaining policy status quo, an upgraded GDP growth forecast for FY24 (6.5% to 7%) boosted investor confidence. Measures to address the liquidity deficit… positively impacted financials, leading to a 5% gain in Nifty Bank for the week,” said Vinod Nair, head of research at Geojit Financial Services.

“Mid and small caps continued to outperform, driven by a healthy economic outlook, strong Q2 earnings, and corrections in oil prices,” he said.

Meanwhile, Prashanth Tapse, senior VP (research) at Mehta Equities, said that despite overbought technical conditions, the short-term technical outlook for the markets continues to be in favour of the bulls.

Now, let’s take a look at the performance of some of the major new-age tech stocks this week.

The total market capitalisation of the 19 new-age tech stocks under Inc42’s coverage stood at around $38.35 Bn at the end of this week as against $40.32 Bn last week.

Regulations Hinder Paytm’s Bull Run

The fintech major became the biggest loser this week as its shares tanked over 25% following its decision to scale back its loan disbursement business.

In The News For 

• Following a media report that said Paytm was temporarily halting its Postpaid loan operations, the fintech giant clarified in an analyst call that Postpaid loan operations will continue, but it is stopping the service for a cohort of users which avails small-ticket loans below INR 50,000. It must be noted that below INR 50,000 loans account for a majority of Paytm’s BNPL business currently.
• In an attempt to compensate for this change, Paytm said it would increase its focus on “lower-risk and high credit worthy customers”, hence bolstering the merchant and personal loan disbursements.
• Following the company’s announcement, several brokerages, who were earlier bullish on Paytm’s growth, cut various near and mid-term estimates for Paytm.

In the next trading session following the announcement, shares of Paytm nosedived 19% to touch the INR 660 level, which was last seen in May this year.

Falling further, the shares ended the week at INR 651.9, a level last seen in April this year.

Goldman Sachs cut its rating on Paytm to ‘neutral’ from ‘buy’ while slashing the price target (PT) to INR 840 from INR 1,250 earlier. The brokerage now expects Paytm to turn profitable in FY26 as against its earlier outlook of FY25.

Cutting its PT to INR 1,120, JM Financial said that near-term growth in Paytm’s lending business and thus, its financial services revenue, is likely to be impacted.

Of the 16 analysts covering the stock, 11 currently have a ‘buy’ or above rating while five rate the stock as ‘hold’.

SoftBank Exits Zomato

SoftBank’s SVF Growth (Singapore) offloaded 9.36 Cr Zomato shares, or 1.1% stake in the company, in an INR 1,127 Cr block deal on Friday.

SVF’s exit comes right after Chinese payments group Alipay exited the food tech major by selling its entire 3.44% stake last week.

The shares sold by the Japanese investor were lapped up by Invesco, ICICI Prudential Insurance, Goldman Sachs (Singapore), Kadensa Capital, Morgan Stanley Asia Singapore, and others. 

Following SVF’s stake sale, shares of Zomato tumbled 1.6% on the BSE on Friday to end the week at INR 119.9.

However, the bullish trend in the stock continues. Despite Friday’s decline, Zomato managed to gain 3.14% this week. The stock is currently trading above its listing price on the back of the company reporting two consecutive profitable quarters.

In a research note published last month, ICICI Securities increased its PT on the stock to INR 164 from INR 160 earlier, which now implies an upside of almost 37% to its last close.

“We believe the company is likely to achieve its medium-term adjusted EBITDA guidance of 4-5% in food delivery and adjusted EBITDA breakeven in Blinkit by Q1 FY25,” said the brokerage.

Stake Sale Begins In Mamaearth

In its first major bulk deal, Honasa Consumer’s early backer Fireside Ventures sold 60.89 Lakh shares of the company, or a 1.89% stake, this week.

Though Mamaearth doesn’t immediately face any major selling pressure from major pre-IPO investors as most of them are under a six-month lock-in period, the likes of Fireside Ventures and Stellaris Venture are not under the lock-in.

Following the stake sale, shares of the D2C unicorn remained range-bound and ended 0.1% higher this week at INR 400.05 on the BSE.

Last week, the stock had slumped 16%.

Currently, the shares are trading 23.47% higher than the listing price.

The post Paytm Emerges As The Biggest Loser Amid A Lacklustre Week For New-Age Tech Stocks appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Call it the year of a prolonged funding winter or the year of corrections, the fact is that investors have not forgotten how their funding was burnt ruthlessly in the name of the rapid expansion of half-done business models and whatnot.

As a result, funding dry spell remained a norm throughout the year, and the world’s third-largest startup ecosystem couldn’t help but mint only one unicorn in 2023 versus 21 in 2022 and 44 unicorns in 2021.

Towards the end of last year, positive anticipations had held their heads high as industry experts saw a funding revival on the cards. However, much to everyone’s dismay, the funding winter seeped into 2023, and the Indian startup ecosystem saw a 75% year-on-year decline in funding in the first quarter (Q1) of 2023.

Besides, the number of deals, too, nosedived 58% YoY to 213 during the quarter under review from 506 in the year-ago quarter.

What triggered this was the inability of a majority of Indian startups to turn a profit, particularly at the late stage.

Corrections continued unabated and the funding winter stretched well into Q3 CY23, marking its 18-month-long journey.

According to Inc42’s latest “Indian Startup Funding Report Q3 2023”, startup funding stood at a mere $1.7 Bn in Q3 2023, the lowest in the past three quarters. On the year-on-year (YoY) basis, it fell 43.8%, while the number of deals declined 38.6% to 205 from 334 deals in Q3 2022.

However, something was different this time. Industry experts saw the country’s startup ecosystem heading towards a renaissance, with founders taking lessons from the likes of Broker Network, BYJU’S, Mojocare, Zilingo, ZestMoney, GoMechanic, just to name a few bad apples.

Interestingly, a keen focus on positive unit economics and effective corporate governance practices was seen returning to the system. Not just this, but away from the gloom and doom, many startups turned profitable this year.

Nevertheless, while the year 2023 had its own set of challenges in terms of investors further tightening their purse strings despite sitting on billions of dollars of dry powder, silver linings did exist. And amid all this, some of the most noteworthy funding deals were inked.

As we stand at the precipice of 2024, we have compiled a list of some of the biggest startup funding deals of the year.

Here Are 2023’s Highest Funded Startups

PhonePe Tops The Charts With A Mammoth $850 Mn Raised In 2023

Even as the entire Indian startup ecosystem was struggling to raise capital and was gripped by funding winter in 2023, investors continued to flock to invest in Walmart-owned fintech startup PhonePe.

This was evident by the fact that the finch decacorn secured a mammoth $850 Mn (INR 7,021 Cr) in funding during the year, at a valuation of $12 Bn.

In what was touted as the largest equity fundraise by an Indian startup, the cash infusion saw participation from big names including Walmart, Ribbit Capital, Tiger Global, TVS Capital Funds, and General Atlantic, among others.

Of its stated intention to raise $1 Bn in 2023, PhonePe achieved 85% of its target while many other unicorn peers were mired in valuation markdowns and paucity of funds.

The move to raise big-ticket funding rounds was likely attributed to the INR 8,000 Cr tax liability on account of shifting headquarters to India and to fuel its growth ambitions ahead of the planned IPO.

Since securing the capital, the company has undertaken a blitzscaling approach – introducing a slew of new products and foraying into new categories such as income tax payment and health insurance.

PhonePe also plans to introduce a range of consumer credit products in the coming six to seven months to bolster its lending play.

Founded in December 2015 by Sameer Nigam, Rahul Chari, and Burzin Engineer, PhonePe is a digital payments and financial services company. It claims to have more than 400 Mn registered users that use its products across the country.

The Bengaluru-based startup recorded a revenue of INR 2,914 Cr in the financial year 2022-23 (FY23), up almost 77% from INR 1,646 Cr in FY22. The startup didn’t disclose its net loss for the financial year ending March 2023.

The fintech platform competes against the likes of Paytm, Google Pay, and CRED in UPI transactions.

Lenskart Fancied A Solid At $600 Mn In 2023 

Eyewear unicorn Lenskart successfully secured $600 Mn in 2023, with a significant portion of $500 Mn coming from the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) and an additional $100 Mn from private equity player ChrysCapital. The investments propelled Lenskart’s total capital infusion to nearly $850 Mn.

According to Inc42, Lenskart raised $879.6 Mn in funding between 2014 and November 2022. The Faridabad-based eyewear brand has raised more than $205 Mn since the beginning of 2022 alone.

Established in 2010, Lenskart stands as India’s largest omnichannel eyewear retailer, extending its reach to Singapore, the UAE, and other geographies. The company currently boasts a customer base of 20 Mn in India.

Lenskart is aggressively expanding internationally, particularly across Asia and the Middle East. In June last year, the ecommerce platform made headlines by acquiring Japan’s largest online eyewear brand, OWNDAYS, in a deal valued at $400 Mn.

With over 2,000 stores, including 1,500 in India and the remaining spread across various geographies, Lenskart is positioned for further growth.

Earlier this month, the eyewear brand announced that it was set to strengthen its presence in Southeast Asia (SEA) by launching 300-400 stores in the region over the next two years.

With approximately 70 stores currently operational in Singapore, the Delhi NCR-based unicorn plans to extend its footprint to Thailand and the Philippines.

The company’s FY23 profit stood at INR 260 Cr against a loss of INR 100 Cr in FY22, the company’s founder and CEO Peyush Bansal told ET in an interview. The startup also reportedly more than doubled its revenue to INR 3,780 Cr.

Lenskart has also ventured into the creation of a Thrasio-styled eyewear-focussed ecommerce roll-up brand, Neso Brands. To further broaden its customer base, the company is actively engaged in vertical integration through a new manufacturing facility, enabling the brand to maintain competitive pricing.

DMI Finance Lapped Up $447 Mn From Multiple Investors 

In April this year, Mumbai-based DMI Finance secured $400 Mn in a funding round led by Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group. Investor Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank (SuMi TRUST Bank), too, participated in the funding round, which included both primary and secondary transactions.

In January last year, the NBFC arm of the DMI Group raised $47 Mn in an equity round from Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank and existing investors NXC Corporation and New Investment Solutions.

With this year’s funding round, the total funding raised by the non-banking financial company (NBFC) has reached $900 Mn.

Founded in 2008 by Shivashish Chatterjee and Yuvraja C Singh, DMI Finance is a pure-play digital lender. It extends credit lines in the form of personal and MSME loans. DMI Finance sources and services customers through digital channels. It is an embedded digital finance partner for the likes of Samsung, Google Pay and Airtel.

Ola Electric’s $384 Mn Funding Buffet

In October this year, Bhavish Aggarwal-led Ola Electric secured INR 3,200 Cr ($384 Mn) in a combination of equity and debt to fuel the expansion of its EV business and establish India’s first lithium-ion cell manufacturing facility in Krishnagiri, Tamil Nadu.

Temasek spearheaded the equity portion, while the State Bank of India led the debt segment of the funding.

The company lapped up funds at a time when it was alleged of violating FAME-II subsidies norms. Besides, allegations of sub-par quality of its scooters and concerns with after-sales service have continued to shroud the EV maker for long.

Despite this, investors see a lot of potential in Ola Electric, which now plans to file its IPO papers before December 20. The startup plans to raise $700 Mn and is looking to target a market capitalisation of $10 Bn through its IPO.

Founded on May 26, 2017, under the leadership of Bhavish Aggarwal, Ola Electric is a subsidiary of Ola and operates as an Indian electric two-wheeler manufacturer. The company is headquartered in Bengaluru, Karnataka.

In October, electric two-wheeler registrations in India surpassed 70,000 units after four months. Despite facing controversies, Ola Electric’s escooter registrations continued to lead the market.

In the meantime, the startup expanded its product line, launching the Ola S1X escooter model in August shortly after delivering the Ola S1 Air model to customers.

Ola Electric’s net loss almost doubled to INR 1,472 Cr in FY23 from INR 784.1 Cr in FY22 due to a steep rise in expenses.

Its consolidated revenue during the fiscal surged 510% YoY to reach INR 2,782 Cr in FY23. The EV startup aims to garner revenue of INR 4,655 Cr in FY24.

Builder.ai Received A $250 Mn Qatar Investment Authority Boost

London-based AI startup Builder.ai raised $250 Mn in a Series D funding round led by Qatar Investment Authority (QIA). Other investors who backed the startup included Iconiq Capital, Jungle Ventures, and Insight Partners.

In a statement, the Microsoft-backed startup revealed that the funding round resulted in a valuation increase of over 1.8X.

Builder.ai had raised the funds for hiring new talent, fostering partnerships, and advancing its technology.

The company claims to have doubled its headcount since January 2022 and expanded its global presence with the opening of four new offices in the US, the UAE, Singapore and France.

With its last funding round, Builder.ai’s total funding now stands at over $450 Mn.

Founded in 2016 by Sachin Dev Duggal and Saurabh Dhoot in Gurugram, Builder.ai offers a platform for entrepreneurs to build apps without little to no coding knowledge using AI.

InsuranceDekho Lapped Up $210 Mn To Disrupt Insurtech Sector

Insurtech startup InsuranceDekho raised $210 Mn across two funding rounds in 2023 to expand its presence across the country.

In February, the startup raised $150 Mn in a Series A funding round, which was a mix of equity and debt. The equity round was led by Goldman Sachs Asset Management and TVS Capital Funds, and also saw participation from Investcorp, Avataar Ventures and LeapFrog Investments

Almost seven months after this, InsuranceDekho secured $60 Mn in a mix of equity and debt in its Series B round. It saw participation from Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Inc, BNP Paribas Cardif, Beams Fintech Fund and Yogesh Mahansaria Family Office. Existing investors TVS Capital, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, and Avataar Ventures also participated in the round, which valued the startup at around $650 Mn-$700 Mn.

The insurtech soonicorn said it planned to utilise the capital to enhance marketing efforts, expand distribution in rural India, scale up its tech platform, and explore inorganic growth opportunities.

Founded by Ankit Agrawal and Ish Babbar in 2017 as the insurance arm of online car marketplace CarDekho, InsuranceDekho received $20 Mn from its parent firm Girnar Software in 2020. Later, it was hived off to function as a separate unit. The platform allows users to compare and buy insurance from top companies. The insurtech platform offers motor, life, health, pet, and travel insurance.

The startup reported a 29% decline in its net loss to INR 51.5 Cr in FY23 from INR 72.2 Cr in the previous fiscal year. Operating revenue doubled to INR 96.4 Cr from INR 47.9 Cr in FY22.

Perfios Inked $229 Mn Funding Deal With Kedaara Capital

In September, Bengaluru-based fintech SaaS startup Perfios signed an agreement with Kedaara Capital for an investment of $229 Mn in the startup’s Series D funding round through the combination of a primary and a secondary sale.

The investment had come almost 19 months after Perfios raised $70 Mn at a valuation of $400 Mn.

The funds were intended to fuel its global expansion plans, particularly into North America and Europe. Additionally, the startup had planned to invest in technology to enhance its comprehensive suite of decision analytics SaaS products.

Founded in 2008 by VR Govindarajan and Debasish Chakraborty, Perfios is a credit decisioning and analytics startup, which operates in B2B and B2C segments. Currently operating in 18 countries, it claims to be working with over 1,000 financial institutions.

According to the company, it delivers 8.2 Bn data points to banks and financial institutions every year to facilitate faster decisioning and processes 1.7 Bn transactions a year with an AUM of $36 Bn.

Fintech SaaS startup Perfios turned profitable in FY23, posting a consolidated net profit of INR 7.8 Cr on the back of a significant jump in its service income from India business.

The startup reported a net loss of INR 16.8 Cr in FY22 on an operating revenue of INR 136.5 Cr.

Zepto Turned Unicorn With $200 Mn Funding Round

Mumbai-based quick commerce unicorn Zepto successfully raised $200 Mn in its Series E funding round in August at a valuation of $1.4 Bn, becoming the first and only unicorn of 2023. Without disclosing how it planned to use the fresh capital, the startup said it plans to go public by 2025.

Later in November, Zepto raised an additional $31.25 Mn as part of the Series E funding round from Goodwater Capital and Nexus Venture Partners, along with the participation of angel investors such as Oliver and Lish Jung, and Mangum II LLC.

Founded in 2021 by Aadit Palicha and Kaivalya Vohora, Zepto seized the opportunity created by the increased demand for rapid ecommerce delivery during the Covid-19 pandemic. The startup gained attention when it secured $60 Mn in funding in November 2021 from investors like Glade Brook Capital, Nexus, and Y Combinator.

Zepto competes against the likes of Swiggy’s Instamart, Zomato-owned Blinkit, and Reliance-backed Dunzo.

Zepto’s net loss surged 3.35X to INR 1,272.4 Cr in FY23 from INR 390.3 Cr in the previous financial year. Revenue from operations zoomed 14.3X to INR 2,024.3 Cr during the year under review from INR 140.7 Cr in FY22.

B2B Manufacturing Unicorn Zetwerk Secured $120 Mn In Series F

In October, B2B ecommerce unicorn Zetwerk raised $120 Mn in its Series F funding round, which was led by Avenir Growth Capital and saw participation from existing investors Lightspeed, Greenoaks Capital, and Steadview Capital.

Additionally, the B2B unicorn secured INR 100 Cr (around $12 Mn) in debt funding in March this year.

Notably, Zetwerk raised $210 Mn at a valuation of $2.7 Bn in a round led by Greenoaks in December 2021.

Founded in 2018 by Amrit Acharya, Srinath Ramakkrushnan, Rahul Sharma and Vishal Chaudhary, Zetwerk connects manufacturing companies with vendors and suppliers for customised products, industrial machine components and other equipment.

Zetwerk has raised nearly $674 Mn in funding since its inception. The B2B unicorn competes with the likes of Infra.Market, Moglix and OfBusiness.

While the unicorn has yet to file its financials for FY23, it posted a loss of INR 59.7 Cr in FY22, up 45% from INR 41.1 Cr in FY21.

Last year, Zetwerk went on an acquisition spree, picking up four companies between July and November 2022 for a total of $50 Mn.

Mintifi Raised $110 Mn To Give Indian SMEs A Lending Push 

In March, the B2B digital lending startup, Mintifi, announced that it raised $110 Mn (INR 902 Cr) in a Series D funding round led by Premji Invest.

The startup’s existing investors, Norwest Venture Partners, Elevation Capital, and International Finance Corporation (IFC), too, participated in the round.

Mintifi had raised the funds to deepen its presence in the supply chain financing domain and expand its product range. The startup also intended to deploy investments towards scaling up the B2B payments vertical and dealer management system.

A part of the funds was put aside to strengthen the tech stack and enhance engagement. The investment also enabled Mintifi to expand its capital base for credit purposes to more than $600 Mn.

The post Big Money Moves: Here’s The List Of India’s 10 Highest Funded Startups Of 2023 appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Kicking off the last month of the year on a positive note, Indian startup ecosystem saw a remarkable upward trajectory in terms of fundraise. Between December 4 and 9, the homegrown startups collectively raked in $85 Mn across 18 deals, marking a 37% jump from $62 Mn secured across 19 deals in the preceding week.

Funding Galore: Indian Startup Funding Of The Week [Dec 4 – Dec 9]

Key Startup Funding Highlights Of The Week

• Five months old, Sarvam AI raised Series A funding of $41 Mn led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, making it the biggest funding deal of the week.
• Fuelled by Sarvam AI’s funding, the enterprisetech sector not only emerged as the most funded sector this week with $44.9 Mn funding, but also witnessed maximum number of deals with six deal count.
• InfoEdge Ventures, 100x.VC and Google’s Women Founder emerged as the busiest investors as it participated in two deals each.
• Seed funding remained flat this week with a mere $2.6 Mn across eight deals.

  
  

Startup Acquisitions This Week

• CarDekho Group picked up a majority stake in Gurugram-based Revv, marking its foray into the shared mobility space. As a part of the deal, CarDekho Group will merge Revv with the rest of its offerings.
• Allen Career Institute acquired doubts solving platform Doubtnut for an undisclosed amount.
• PE firm ChrysCapital acquired 75% stake of B2B SaaS platform ProHance Analytics for an undisclosed amount to foray into the country’s SaaS space.
• Edtech startup Toprankers acquired Gurugram-based test preparation platform Chinar Law Institute (CLI) for an undisclosed amount. 

Other Major Developments From This Week

• Ahmedabad-based VC firm GVFL partnered with global venture accelerator Brinc to launch an accelerator programme for backing early-stage startups across four different sectors.
• Indian Angel Network (IAN) announced the first close of its second venture capital fund at INR 355 Cr.
• Bhavish Aggarwal’s Ola Electric to file its draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) in the next two weeks as it gears up to go public early next year.

The post From Sarvam AI To The Sleep Company — Indian Startups Raised $85 Mn This Week appeared first on Inc42 Media.

The years 2020 and 2021 were among the most historical ones for the Indian startup ecosystem. Amid the Covid-19 pandemic wreaking havoc across the globe, Indian startups made a name for themselves on the back of their innovations. This resulted in global investors making a beeline to pump in capital in the country’s startup ecosystem.

Such was the gold rush to India that the startups in the country raked up a record $42 Bn funding. Every investor of note seemed to be wanting a piece of India’s digital ecosystem. The fear of missing out took over and the bottom lines of the startups in which capital was being infused took a back seat. 

To put things into perspective, as many as 55 out of 74 Indian unicorns incurred a cumulative operating loss of $5.9 Bn in FY22, as per an Inc42 analysis. This was almost double the cumulative loss of $3 Bn incurred by 53 of these startups in FY21. However, this didn’t deter investors from participating in the funding rounds of these startups.

At the time, it seemed as if nothing could go wrong for the Indian startup ecosystem. Then, came the funding winter. Amid the global economic slowdown and tight liquidity, investors suddenly started focussing back on profitability and the growth-at-all-costs approach was thrown out of the window.

This came as a rude shock to Indian startups, which had got accustomed to the free-flowing funding scenario of the previous years. As investors tightened their purse strings, realisation struck that they needed to focus on their bottom lines to extend their runways and get fresh funding. This resulted in the start of restructuring exercises across startups.

Layoffs, pay cuts, and cuts in advertising expenses became the norm as turning profitable and cutting down loss became the top priority. As per Inc42’s layoff tracker, Indian startups have laid off over 29,000 employees so far. 

But did it help Indian startups turn profitable? While a majority of Indian startups are still in the red, a few of them managed to turn profitable in FY23. Besides, many of them also managed to cut down on their losses. 

As 2023 nears its end, we have collated a list of startups that managed to turn around their business and became profitable in FY23.

Editor’s Note: This compilation is neither exhaustive nor a ranking of any kind. Startups are listed alphabetically.

Decline In ESOP Expenses Steers CarTrade To The Profitability Lane

Listed auto marketplace CarTrade turned profitable in FY23. It reported a net profit of INR 40.43 Cr in FY23 as against a net loss of INR 121.35 Cr in the previous fiscal year.

The sharp improvement could be attributed to the decline in its ESOP expenses, or non-cash share-based payment expenses. ESOP expenses plummeted to INR 27.94 Cr during the year under review from INR 185.18 Cr in FY22. This resulted in a drop in the startup’s overall expenses to 23.2% to INR 367.16 Cr in FY23 from INR 478.07 Cr.

On the other hand, the startup’s revenue from operations rose by 16% to INR 363.74 Cr during the year from INR 312.72 Cr.

Meanwhile, the startup has continued its profitable ride in FY24 as well. In Q2 FY24, it reported a 132% year-on-year (YoY) increase in consolidated profit to INR 12.96 Cr. 

Exceptional Gain Catapults Fractal Into The Profitable Club

AI Intelligence startup Fractal, which took almost two decades to enter the unicorn club, reported a profit of INR 194.4 Cr in FY23 as against a loss of INR 148.4 Cr in the previous financial year.

However, the startup would still have posted a loss if not for an exceptional item gain of INR xxx Cr from the loss of control of a subsidiary company. An email sent to Fractal seeking information about this exceptional item gain didn’t elicit any response till the time of publishing this story.

Meanwhile, Fractal’s operating revenue zoomed 53% to INR 1,985.4 Cr in FY23 from INR 1,295.3 Cr in the previous year, with majority of the revenue coming from the US. 

Founded in 2000 by Srikanth Velamakanni and Pranay Agrawal, along with core team members – Nirmal Palaparthi, Pradeep Suryanarayan, and Ramakrishna Reddy, Fractal offers AI and advanced analytics solutions to Fortune 500 companies.

The startup has raised a funding of around $680 Mn to date and counts TPG, Apax Partners, and Khazanah Nasional among its investors. 

Groww’s Growing User Base Helps It Become Profitable

Billionbrains Garage Private Limited, the parent entity of Groww, turned profitable in FY23. It reported a net profit of INR 448.7 Cr in FY23 as against a loss of INR 239 Cr in the previous fiscal year.

The primary reason for the startup turning profitable was strong growth in its operating revenue, which rose over three-fold to INR 1,277.8 in FY23 from INR 351 Cr in the previous fiscal year. Meanwhile, total expenses rose a meagre 1.4X to INR 932.9 Cr.

The increase in operating revenue could be attributed to the startup’s growing user base. Groww surpassed bootstrapped unicorn Zerodha in terms of number of active investors at the end of September 2023. 

As per National Stock Exchange (NSE) data, Groww had 6.63 Mn active investors at the end of September 2023 as against Zerodha’s 6.48 Mn.

Besides its stock broking platform, Groww has also started offering loans. Earlier this year, it rolled out UPI payments feature on its broking app and acquired the mutual fund business of Indiabulls Housing Finance for a consideration of INR 175.6 Cr.

Increase In MSME Lending Helps Indifi Post Profit

ICICI Venture-backed Indifi reported a profit of INR 5.1 Cr in FY23 as compared to a loss of INR 39 Cr in the previous fiscal year.

The improvement in the startup’s financials could be attributed to the 2X jump in its operating revenue. The MSME lender reported an operating revenue of INR 197.9 Cr in FY23 as against INR 96.29 Cr in the previous fiscal year.

As per Aloke Mittal, the founder of Indifi, the startup saw a sharp improvement in business during the pandemic due to higher demand from MSMEs for working capital. Amid the stay-at-home restriction, MSMEs relied more on digital lenders for their hassle-free and digital offerings than banks, which often require tedious paperwork and visits to the branch.

Lower Expenses Help NeoGrowth Report Profit

Mumbai-based non-banking financial company (NBFC) NeoGrowth turned profitable in FY23 on the back of decline in its expenses. The startup reported a profit of INR 17.2 Cr in FY23 against a loss of INR 39.4 Cr incurred in FY22.

Neogrowth’s operating revenue rose 5.3% to INR 381 Cr during the year under review from INR 361.5 Cr in FY22. At INR 363.1 Cr, the NBFC earned the biggest chunk of revenue from interest income in FY23. This number stood at INR 357.5 Cr in the previous year. 

Besides interest income, NeoGrowth also earned revenue from commissions and fees. Total revenue rose to INR 382.9 Cr in FY23 from INR 362.7 Cr in FY22. 

Meanwhile, total expenses declined 14% to INR 357.4 Cr in FY23 from INR 414.5 Cr in FY22. 

The NBFC raised $66 Mn in a mix of debt and equity funding across multiple rounds in FY23. Overall, it has raised around $188 Mn to date and counts Dutch development bank FMO, Development Finance Corporation (DFC), Omidyar Network, and Lightrock among its backers.

 
Perfios Turns It Around In FY23

Fintech-focussed SaaS startup Perfios achieved profitability in the fiscal year ending on March 31, 2023, marking a significant milestone after four consecutive years of losses. 

The Bengaluru-based company reported a profit of INR 7.8 Cr after incurring a net loss of INR 16.8 Cr in FY22.

In FY23, Perfios’ operating revenue surged nearly 200% YoY to INR 406.8 Cr compared to the INR 136.5 Cr reported in the preceding fiscal. 

The company generates revenue by providing software solutions to financial institutions, covering areas such as analytics, onboarding automation, and due diligence.

Earlier this year, Perfios secured $229 Mn in its Series D funding round from Kedaara Capital.

Looking ahead, Perfios is gearing up for a public market listing within the next 18-24 months. For this, the company has appointed Sumit Nigam as the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Anu Mathew as the Chief People Officer (CPO).

Tracxn Takes The Profitability Route

Listed data intelligence platform Tracxn turned profitable in FY23 with a PAT of INR 33.09 Cr against a loss of INR 4.85 Cr a fiscal ago.

During the year under review, Tracxn recorded a deferred tax expense of INR 23.26 Cr. Additionally, in the December 2022 quarter, the company recovered INR 4.78 Cr, previously recognised as an IPO expense, from shareholders who sold their shares during the public offering.

Excluding the aforementioned recovery of IPO expenses and the deferred tax expense, the startup’s profit stood at INR 5.34 Cr in FY23 versus a loss of INR 36 Lakh in FY22.

The startup’s operating revenue rose 23% to INR 78.11 Cr in FY23 from INR 63.45 Cr in FY22 on the back of continued growth in large accounts and increased uptake of products globally, especially in India, the Americas, and Asia Pacific. It must be noted that around 70% of the startup’s revenue comes from outside India.

In the first quarter of FY24, the startup’s profit declined 18% to INR 69 Lakh from INR 1.36 Cr reported in the same quarter last fiscal year. Revenue from operations increased to INR 19.82 Cr, up 8% YoY.

The post Balancing The Books: Here’re The Indian Startups Which Turned Profitable In FY23 appeared first on Inc42 Media.

As we approach the end of 2023, it can be safely said that India’s startup ecosystem has had a year to forget. As funding slowed to a drip, dozens of startups have bitten the dust since the start of the year, as startup layoffs continue to disrupt livelihoods across the country.

According to Inc42’s Indian Tech Startup Funding Report Q3 2023, Indian startups have raised $7.1 Bn in the first nine months of 2023, down 68% compared to approximately $22 Bn raised during the corresponding period last year.

While the current scheme of things has prompted many marquee investors to instruct their portfolio startups to cut costs and increase runways, many founders seem to have caused a bloodbath in the job market in the name of undertaking cost-cutting measures.

Since the onset of the funding winter in 2022, an estimated 34,785 employees have been laid off by 121 Indian startups.

Further, edtech has seen the most layoffs, followed by consumer services and ecommerce. The three sectors have collectively seen 57 startups laying off 25,909 employees since last year.

The edtech segment, in particular, has come under intense scrutiny. Since last year, 24 Indian edtech startups, including six of the seven edtech unicorns, have fired 14,616 employees.

Further, as many as 15,247 employees have been fired by 69 startups so far this year, highlighting the fact that the situation around job cuts has hardly improved.

As the startup ecosystem continues to endure a funding winter and the subsequent slowdown, Inc42 has compiled a list of startup layoffs that have happened so far.

If you would like to report a layoff, pay cut etc. at a startup, write to us at editor@inc42.com.

Indian Startup Layoffs

December 6 | ZestMoney To Shut Down By December-End, Fires 150 Employees

Fintech startup ZestMoney is about to shut down as the efforts of the new management to revive the company failed to materialise. The fintech startup will wrap up operations by the end of December and lay off its entire workforce of 150 employees.

The development has come after the company failed to raise a follow-on round or find a buyer to save its sinking ship. Meanwhile, the company has promised two months of severance payments and outplacement support to the outgoing employees.

The shutdown comes after the company’s original cofounders, Lizzie Chapman, Priya Sharma, and Ashish Anantharaman, quit the startup in May this year. The leadership team resigned after the acquisition talks with the fintech major PhonePe went awry. At the time, the company had to trim 30% of its workforce.

November 30 | Krafton-Backed Loco Fires 36% Workforce Amid GST Woes

Game streaming platform Loco laid off 40 employees, or around 36% of its workforce, as part of the company’s realignment process. 

Loco’s founders Anirudh Pandita and Ashwin Suresh announced the layoffs during a recent town hall, stating it was part of the company’s restructuring plan, even as they aimed to expand operations globally.

Suresh told Inc42 that after a recent strategic review, they decided to focus on transaction-based monetisation and operate with a leaner cost structure. Moving ahead, Loco will concentrate exclusively on core objectives, including monetisation.

Last year, Loco raised $42 Mn (INR 330 Cr) in its Series A funding round led by South Korea’s early-stage venture fund Hashed. The startup also counts Krafton and Lumikai as its other investors.

November 20 | Inc42 Exclusive: Jodo Sacks 100 Employees As Business Outlook Falters

Jodo laid off around 100 employees in a cost-cutting exercise on the back of lower-than-expected business growth, multiple sources told Inc42.

The layoffs took place across departments, including engineering, data, customer success, product management, and sales. New employees, as well as those drawing high salaries, were impacted by the retrenchment exercise.

The educational fee management startup held a virtual town hall meeting on November 17, during which its founders informed the employees that Jodo would need to cut down its costs to sustain itself over the coming months. The founders also said that the startup failed to achieve the business targets for this year, the sources said.

An email sent to the founders of Jodo regarding the layoffs didn’t elicit any response.

November 19 | PhysicsWallah Lays Off Around 120 Employees

Edtech unicorn PhysicsWallah (PW) laid off around 70-120 employees, less than 1% of its workforce. While reports suggest that the move was part of a cost-cutting exercise, the company claimed that these layoffs were due to performance issues.

“At PW, we regularly assess performance through mid-term and end-term cycles. For the cycle ending in October, less than 0.8% of our workforce, ranging from 70 to 120 individuals with performance concerns, may be asked to transition. Our primary focus remains on fostering a dynamic, high-performing team,” the CHRO of PW, Satish Khengre, said.

Khengre added that the edtech unicorn plans to hire an additional 1,000 employees in the next six months. “We deeply value the dedication of our existing employees and recognise their integral role in shaping the future of education technology,” he added.

October 26 | Inc42 Exclusive: Unacademy’s Graphy Cuts 20-30% Jobs

Unacademy-owned SaaS platform Graphy culled 20-30% of its workforce, or nearly 50 employees, multiple sources privy to the development told Inc42. 

Graphy, which offers learning management system services to creators in the edtech space, has been struggling to hit the revenue target, leading to a restructuring within the firm, Inc42 learned from sources.

In a statement sent to Inc42, an Unacademy representative stated that the job cuts happened on the basis of performance and had nothing to do with layoffs or revenue growth plans.

“We have not done any layoffs, and we remain focussed on enhancing our team’s performance and overall productivity so we can continue to compound our growth,” a Graphy spokesperson said.

October 16 | Inc42 Exclusive: CityMall Fires Another 90 Employees

Nearly 16 months after undergoing its first retrenchment round, social commerce unicorn CityMall conducted its second round of layoffs on October 16, terminating around 90 employees, sources privy to the development told Inc42. 

The layoffs impacted nearly all departments within the company. CityMall provided a month’s salary as severance pay. As per sources, the layoffs happened as a result of a cost-cutting exercise and on investors’ directives.

Inc42 also found out that while the startup had been conducting layoffs in smaller groups since June this year, the October 15 layoff round was the most significant since last year.

October 12 | Adda247 Joins The Edtech Layoff Spree, Fires 250-300 Employees To Extend Runway

Google-backed Adda247 fired around 250-300 employees across multiple verticals as it looked to extend its runway amid the ongoing funding winter. 

According to Entrackr, Adda247 also laid off 100-150 employees at its UPSC-focussed test prep vertical, StudyIQ. The edtech startup fired another 150 employees from sales, content, and faculty teams. 

Inc42’s email to the startup did not elicit a response.

As per the report, the layoffs were undertaken because the edtech player doesn’t expect the investment environment for the sector to improve. The employees were told to resign without any prior notice. 

October 5 | Bizongo Lays Off 50 Employees A Day After Announcing $50 Mn Funding Round

Just a day after raising $50 Mn, B2B vendor management platform Bizongo fired nearly 50 employees. The layoffs could likely be attributed to the company’s growing focus on profitability. 

In a statement to Inc42, Bizongo said the move is part of its focus on driving key business goals.

“We are driving sharper focus towards key business goals, and in lieu of this, we have reallocated our people. Parting ways with people is never easy, and these are difficult decisions. We are fully committed to extending support to affected employees to the best of our abilities,” a Bizongo spokesperson said.

September 26 | Embattled Edtech BYJU’S Announces 4,000 Job Cuts

BYJU’S announced to lay off around 4,000 employees as part of a restructuring exercise amid a severe cash crunch, sources told Inc42. The layoffs were to be restricted to Think & Learn Private Ltd, the parent of BYJU’S, sources said.

“…indications of such layoffs have been given to the employees. This is the only way to move forward,” one of the sources said. The layoff exercise will also impact senior employees and team managers. 

A BYJU’S spokesperson confirmed that the edtech company will be undertaking a restructuring exercise but did not disclose the number of employees who will be impacted by it. 

September 21 | DealShare Shuts B2B Biz, Fires Another 100 Employees

DealShare discontinued its B2B business and fired over 100 employees as part of this process, sources told Inc42. The unicorn confirmed the development to Inc42. DealShare said it is moving its operations to Gurugram and consolidating its business to focus on the Jaipur, Delhi NCR, Lucknow, and Kolkata markets.

“We also took a conscious decision to focus on B2C business at this point to stay relevant to our consumers in the market. We have taken decisions about realigning our budgets, reorganising teams and locations, etc.,” a company spokesperson said in a statement. 

The development came almost two months after DealShare cofounder and CEO Vineet Rao stepped down from his role. 

September 11 | Chargebee Fires 10% Workforce In 2nd Round Of Layoffs

Chennai-based SaaS unicorn Chargebee laid off 10% of its workforce, affecting 100 to 120 employees across multiple departments.

Chargebee CEO Krish Subramanian cited ‘market shifts’ as the primary reason behind the layoffs. The company said that it would provide severance packages in accordance with the relevant labour laws in each country.

The latest layoffs come almost ten months after the company sacked approximately 142 employees due to volatile economic conditions.

September 1 | Khatabook Fires Over 40 Employees

Peak XV Partners-backed fintech startup Khatabook sacked more than 40 employees to cut costs and turn profitable. The impacted employees were from sales, marketing, analytics, and tech teams.

The startup offered a three-month salary as a severance package to the impacted employees, including pay, stock option vesting, health insurance extensions, and other job search-related support, the startup told Inc42.

Khatabook has raised $187 Mn to date, including $100 Mn from Tribe Capital and Moore Strategic Ventures in its Series C round. It counts B Capital, Peak XV Partners, and Better Capital among its investors.

August 30 | Inc42 Exclusive: Shiprocket-Owned Omuni Fires 35% Workforce

Shiprocket-owned retail SaaS platform Omuni laid off around 60-70 employees, or nearly 35% of its workforce, sources told Inc42. 

The retrenchment exercise, which took place in the second week of August, impacted employees from the tech, product, sales, and talent acquisition teams.

Omuni is giving a salary of two months as severance pay to the outgoing employees.

Besides, Inc42 learned that Omuni CEO and cofounder Mukul Bafna and CTO Sumeet Chandhok were also planning to step down.

August 29 | CoinSwitch Fires 44 Employees Amid Regulatory Hiccups

Tiger Global-backed crypto exchange CoinsSwitch laid off 44 employees as part of a restructuring exercise. The layoffs predominantly impacted the customer support team.

As per the company, the layoffs took place earlier this month, with impacted employees ‘voluntarily resigning’ from their positions. The unicorn did not share any details of the severance packages the outgoing employees would be eligible for.

The job cuts come at a time when the entire crypto ecosystem has been reeling under the impact of a hefty taxation regime. Be it a 30% tax on gains from the sale of virtual digital assets (VDAs) or a 1% tax deducted at source (TDS) for all crypto transactions worth INR 10,000 and above, the crypto industry has been mired in regulatory uncertainty.

August 29 | Kenko Health Fires Over 20% Of Employees

Bengaluru-based healthcare financing startup Kenko Health trimmed at least 20% of its workforce (around 80 employees). The layoffs impacted employees from support, processing, sales, and tech teams in the Delhi NCR and Bengaluru offices, sources told Inc42. The move to cut jobs has been attributed to the ongoing funding crunch and Kenko’s failure to generate consistent revenues.

There are no details of any severance package being offered to the impacted employee.

The recent round of layoffs comes more than a year after the startup raised $12 Mn in its Series A funding round led by Peak XV Partners, with participation from BEENEXT, Orios, 9Unicorns and Waveform.

August 26 | Cuemath Fires Another 100 Employees To Cut Costs

Peak XV-backed edtech startup Cuemath fired another 100 employees to cut costs. 

“Unfortunately, our revenue and cost trajectories are still divergent from expectations, and our problems are compounded by the bad macro situation around capital availability, particularly for edtech,” Cuemath founder and CEO Manan Khurma told the employees in an email on Friday (August 25), as per a Moneycontrol report.

Inc42’s email to Cuemath did not elicit a response.

The development comes three months after the Bengaluru-based edtech startup fired around 100 employees in May this year, within a year of raising $57 Mn. After the May layoffs, Khurma reportedly told the Cuemath employees that there wouldn’t be any need for more layoffs. 

August 24 | Chingari Sacks Over 50% Employees In Second Round Of Layoffs

Cash-strapped short-video platform Chingari laid off more than 50% of its workforce in a second round of layoffs within two months, sources told Inc42. The layoffs impacted employees from teams like product, customer support, design, and marketing. 

Following the latest round of layoffs, Chingari is now left with only 50-60 employees, as per sources. Besides layoffs, Chingari has also asked some of its employees to take pay cuts of up to 50%. 

August 19 | Gaming Startup Spartan Poker Fires 40% Workforce Amid GST Pressure

Spartan Poker fired 125 employees or 40% of its total workforce, as it grapples with the new 28% tax regime. It was not immediately clear, which departments were impacted by the company’s retrenchment move. 

There is no clarity if the company offered any severance package to the impacted employees. 

Founded by Amin Rozani, Sameer Rattonsey and Peter Abraham in 2014, Spartan Poker is an online poker platform that allows gaming enthusiasts to play poker tournaments online across various formats.

August 10 | Hike Fires 22% Employees Amid GST Pressure

Web3 gaming startup Hike, which pivoted from instant messaging, fired 22% of its workforce, about 55 people, following the GST Council’s decision to charge a 28% GST on online gaming.

People familiar with the development told Inc42 that the retrenchments came as the gaming company was staring at a 400% increase in tax burden. While sources said as many as 100 employees were impacted, Hike’s founder and CEO Kavin Mittal told Inc42 that nearly 55 people have been laid off by the company.

“…Business is in the best shape ever but this 400% increase in GST is a bazooka pointed at us. We’ll need to absorb some of it and as a result, the RIF [reduction in force] at Hike/Rush,” Mittal said.

Meanwhile, there was no information available on the teams impacted and any severance benefits the outgoing employees were entitled to.

August 8 | MPL Fires 350 Employees Following The 28% GST Regime

Gaming unicorn Mobile Premier League (MPL) decided to slash 350 jobs to cut costs following the GST Council’s decision to levy a 28% tax on online gaming. The move comes more than a year after the startup fired 100 employees in May 2022.

In an internal mail, MPL cofounder and CEO Sai Srinivas said that the startup would lay off about 350 employees. Placing the blame squarely on the levy of 28% GST on full face value for real-money gaming, Srinivas told employees that the new levy has increased the tax burden on the company by as much as 350-400%.

Srinivas also told employees that the company spent a ‘lot of time evaluating and re-evaluating’ the layoffs. He added that the unicorn eventually decided that ‘the sooner we are able to deliver certainty to everyone, the better’.

However, no details were available on the teams affected and any severance benefits the outgoing employees were entitled to.

August 3 | Spinny Lays Off 300 Employees Post Merger

Spinny downsized around 4.5% of its total workforce, approximately 300 employees, out of a total of 6,500 after the merger of Truebil and Spinny Max with its main Spinny platform.

“This business reorganisation will strengthen our go-to-market business model, reduce costs and improve our margin profile, putting us on an expedited path to profitability. However, it will impact approximately 4.5% of our total workforce as we consolidate our operations under a single brand,” the company told Inc42.

The used cars marketplace did not share any information regarding the teams impacted by the layoffs, or whether the impacted employees were entitled to any severance benefits following the retrenchments.

August 2 | SaaS Startup Actyv.ai Fires 60 Employees

SaaS startup Actyv.ai fired 60 employees or around 50% of its 120-strong workforce, impacting employees from the product, marketing, HR, sales and solutions teams at Actyv.ai, sources told Inc42.

Actvy.ai fired the employees during a town hall meeting on July 31, the sources said, adding that the startup offered one month’s salary as severance pay to the impacted employees.

Raghu Subramanian, founder and global CEO of the startup, said, “We value the dedication and commitment of each team member during this transition period, and we believe that these measures will position us for a stronger and more resilient future.”

The development comes months after the SaaS startup announced the close of a $12 Mn (INR 96 Cr) Pre-Series A funding round from Singapore-based 1Digi Ventures and Subramanian’s family office in January 2023.

August 1 | Inc42 Exclusive: Increff Lays Off 20% Workforce To Cut Costs

Premji Invest-backed SaaS startup Increff laid off around 60 employees or 20% of its workforce in a cost-cutting exercise. The employees were from the tech, sales, customer success, and HR teams, among others.

Responding to Inc42’s queries on the development, Increff CEO and cofounder Rajul Jain confirmed the layoffs. Per Inc42 sources, adverse macroeconomic conditions and failure to meet the targets for onboarding new clients led to the layoffs. There was no information made available by the startup regarding any severance benefits.

Last year, it raised $12 Mn in a Series B round, which saw participation from Premji Invest, Binny Bansal’s 021 Capital, among others. Earlier, in 2017, it raised around $2 Mn from Sequoia Capital (now Peak XV Partners).

July 14 | Skill-Lync Fires 225 Employees In Another Round Of Layoffs

Skill-Lync conducted a second round of layoffs which impacted nearly 20% of its workforce or around 225 employees. There was no clarity on which specific teams and positions were impacted as part of the mass firings.

“This decision was not taken lightly, and we have done our utmost to ensure that the process was as transparent and fair as possible for the employees involved,” said Skill-Lync cofounder Suryanarayanan Paneerselvam in a statement to Techcrunch. 

In April this year, the Chennai-headquartered startup slashed more than 400 jobs, blaming macroeconomic conditions.

July 13 | Sachin Bansal-Led Fintech Navi Fires 200 Employees

IPO-bound fintech startup Navi Technologies reportedly has fired around 200 employees across multiple departments. Per media reports, product development and management teams have seen up to 70% of members impacted by the layoffs at Navi.

A spokesperson for the fintech unicorn attributed the layoffs to a routine performance appraisal. “Navi conducts performance appraisals twice a year, which results in expected departures from the company,” said the spokesperson. Navi did not respond to Inc42’s query related to any severance to which the impacted employees would be entitled.

The move comes days after Navi’s NBFC arm, Navi Finserv, started raising up to INR 500 Cr through the public issue of Non-Convertible Debentures (NCDs). The debt raise opened on July 10, and the subscriptions will close on July 21.

July 12 | WayCool Fires 300 Employees To Chase Profitability

Agritech startup WayCool fired 300 employees in a restructuring exercise to chase profitability. The agritech startup will also shut down some of its distribution centres and a few new experimental projects.

“We plan to focus on our core and profitable businesses, slowing down on some of our experimental initiatives as we work to grow further. This will change the profile of our business but is aimed at ensuring a sustainable and long-term success of our enterprise,” a WayCool spokesperson told Inc42.

The layoffs come nearly 18 months after WayCool raised $117 Mn in January 2022 in the largest-ever agritech funding round.

June 19 | Inc42 Exclusive: Chingari Lays Off 20% Workforce, Pivots Content Model

Short-video app Chingari fired 20% of its workforce weeks after Chingari cofounder Aditya Kothari quit the startup. While employees across teams lost their jobs, the tech team was impacted the most. The layoffs specifically affected employees at the startup’s Mumbai and Bengaluru offices.

“We deeply regret the need for these workforce reductions of 20% as a part of Chingari’s organisational restructuring,” a Chingari spokesperson said.

Chingari has offered a two-month salary as severance pay to the laid off employees and extended their health insurance by three months.

Shortly after the layoffs, Inc42 also exclusively reported Chingari’s apparent pivot into the NSFW territory with paid live 1-on-1 calls between creators and users. The app has introduced the feature in an apparent bid to increase monetisation on the platform.

June 17 | Mojocare Fires 80% Workforce, Misconduct Allegations Surface Against Founders

Healthtech startup Mojocare fired more than 80% of its workforce as part of its cost rationalisation drive and focus on profitability. While media reports suggested a number of more than 200 employees being impacted, a spokesperson of the startup pegged the number at 150-170 employees. 

The development comes nearly 10 months after Mojocare raised a funding of $20.6 Mn from the likes of B Capital, Chiratae Ventures, Sequoia India’s Surge and Better Capital.

Shortly after the layoffs, Mojocare’s founders admitted before the board and investors of the startup that they had fudged numbers. Sources told Inc42 that Mojocare founders approached investors in May and confessed to round-tripping of funds.

For now, the group of investors has appointed an interim CFO, asked the founders to step away, and is considering a legal action against the founders. As for Mojocare, the startup’s operations have been suspended and it is staring down the barrel of dissolution.

June 14 | Mamaearth To Shut Momspresso’s MyMoney, Brand Marketing Vertical; 80 Employees Impacted

IPO-bound D2C unicorn Mamaearth will shut Momspresso MyMoney, the influencer engagement platform of Momspresso, later this month due to the latter’s mounting losses, sources told Inc42. The move led to 80 employees at Momspresso being fired.

According to Inc42 sources, in a town hall meeting in the first week of April, Momspresso’s top management, including the cofounders, informed the employees about the decision to shutter MyMoney. The D2C beauty unicorn is also likely to shut Momspresso’s brand marketing business, multiple sources informed us.

Mamaearth acquired the parenting platform Momspresso in 2021 for INR 152.3 Cr. The platform currently operates three verticals – user-generated content platform, brand marketing, and MyMoney.

June 12 | Freshworks Fires Employees For The Third Time

Freshworks has seen another round of layoffs across multiple teams in the US, citing performance reviews. The layoffs have happened within senior positions in the SaaS unicorn’s product, engineering and go-to-market (GTM) teams, sources told Moneycontrol.

When Inc42 reached out to the listed SaaS unicorn for clarification, a spokesperson said, “Freshworks does not comment on the management of the workforce in our normal course of business. There have been no organisation-wide layoffs to report.”

Freshworks fired around 2% of its staff – around 90 employees – in December 2022. While there were no confirmations from the SaaS unicorn on the number of impacted employees during the second layoff round in March, media reports indicated around 114-125 staff being impacted.

June 1 | Glamyo Health Joins Indian Startup Layoff Spree

Glamyo Health reportedly fired employees without any prior notice or without any clarity on final salary settlements, according to a police complaint cited by a YourStory report. The complaint, filed by an employee at Barakhamba Road police station in New Delhi, reportedly also claims that Glamyo Health delayed salary payments ‘several times’ over the last few months.

“About 50 employees were let go in the last two months with the aim of cutting costs and containing losses. But almost all the employees were asked to leave in the last two days without any information of severance, salaries or reasoning,” the report quoted a former employee as saying.

A legal representative of Glamyo was cited as terming the claims ‘baseless allegations’, as Inc42 did not hear back from the startup till the time of publishing of the article.

May 30 | Mensa Brands Cuts Jobs From Recently Acquired India Lifestyle Network 

House of Brands unicorn Mensa Brands laid off around 30 employees from India Lifestyle Network (ILN), which it acquired in December last year.

A spokesperson of Mensa Brands told Inc42 in a statement, “ILN is committed to providing the best content to its consumers and industry-leading services to its client partners. To enhance efficiency post-integration, we restructured some teams that impacted a few positions. This activity affected less than 30 team members in ILN.”

The Mensa spokesperson said the startup is providing each of the impacted employees up to three months’ salary, extended health insurance and support in finding new roles.

May 25 | Inc42 Exclusive: Prosus-Backed Airmeet Lays Off 75 Employees

Virtual events platform Airmeet fired about 30% of its 250-300 people workforce or at least 75 employees, sources told Inc42. The layoffs impacted multiple teams, including sales, marketing, tech, and operations. Besides India, employees working in the US, and Europe, among others, were also impacted by the layoffs.

In an internal mail, Lalit Mangal, cofounder and CEO of Airmeet, said the startup had to lay off employees as its ‘execution’ was not yielding the desired outcomes. Inc42 has accessed the mail sent by Mangal. Mangal confirmed the layoffs with Inc42 but didn’t disclose the number of employees impacted.

The startup has offered two months of salary as severance pay to the Indian employees and acceleration of vesting of all ESOPs options till June 30, 2023. It will also extend its health insurance coverage for these employees till August 18, 2023.

The layoffs came more than a year after Airmeet raised $35 Mn in its Series B funding round from Prosus Ventures, Sistema Asia Fund, RingCentral Ventures, KDDI Open Innovation Fund, DG Daiwa Ventures and Nexxus Global.

May 12 | Inc42 Exclusive: CRED-Owned Happay Cuts 35% Workforce

Fintech unicorn CRED-owned Happay has reduced its workforce by approximately 35%, sources told Inc42. At least 160 employees across various departments, including sales, marketing, tech, product and operations were let go as part of a restructuring exercise.

While sources told Inc42 that the restructuring was related to employee performance and was part of the appraisal process, Happay did not revert to a detailed questionnaire till press time.

As part of the severance package, the startup is offering employees three months’ salary along with additional benefits, such as an extension of insurance coverage and job placement assistance.

The layoffs come after Kunal Shah’s CRED spent $180 Mn on acquiring Happay in December 2021.

May 8 | Gold Loans Startup Rupeek Fires 20 More Employees Citing Restructuring

Sequoia-backed Gold loans startup Rupeek fired 20 more employees, around 2% of its workforce, as it looks to become profitable amid an ongoing funding crunch.

A Rupeek spokesperson told Inc42, “We have witnessed strong growth and efficiency gains that take us closer to becoming profitable. As we continue to assess the volatile market situation and take strategic and proactive steps to adapt, it is necessary to maintain a leaner and more agile organisation. Unfortunately, this also meant that we had to make the difficult decision to part ways with less than 2% of our workforce.”

The startup incurred a total loss of INR 364.3 Cr in FY22, a 2.3X jump from INR 156.3 Cr in FY21, while Rupeek saw its total revenue climb to INR 132.4 Cr in FY22, a 49% jump from INR 88.5 Cr in FY21.

May 8 | Edtech Startup Cuemath Fires 100 Employees Citing Restructuring

Cuemath restructured its management and laid off its employees, with founder Manan Khurma returning as its full-time CEO. According to media reports and Inc42 sources, the company has fired around 100 employees.

“Some functions and roles will also be rationalised to reflect our increased focus on LCX and retention. While this will impact some talented people who have contributed a lot to Cuemath, we are committed to supporting our affected colleagues with everything they need to ensure a smooth transition into the next phase of their professional journey,” Khurma said on LinkedIn.

The development comes less than a year after the edtech raised $57 Mn in June 2022, as it saw its standalone losses reach INR 216.6 Cr in FY22.

May 5 | Inc42 Exclusive: Edtech Startup Teachmint Fires 70 Employees

Teachmint conducted its second round of layoffs since the onset of funding winter, having fired over 70 employees, sources told Inc42. Employees working in talent acquisition, tech, and support roles; and quality analysts were impacted during this round of layoff.

Employees were informed about the layoffs in a town hall held by the top management, including founders, on May 4, sources privy to the matter informed Inc42. Teachmint confirmed the layoffs to Inc42 without disclosing the number of impacted employees.

In a statement, the startup said that they are working to provide support to the impacted employees. The layoffs come after the startup’s net loss surged 24X to INR 131.7 Cr in FY22 from INR 5.5 Cr in FY21, while its revenue from operations stood at INR 77.45 Lakhs in FY22. The startup’s first year of operations was FY22.

May 5 | Meesho Fires 251 Employees In Third Round Of Layoffs

Ecommerce unicorn Meesho fired 251 employees or about 15% of its present workforce of 1,675 as a part of a cost-cutting exercise. The ecommerce giant’s cofounder and CEO Vidit Aatrey informed the employees of the decision in an email earlier on May 5.

“As leaders, we made judgement errors in over-hiring ahead of the curve. At the same time, we could have run our org structure in a more effective and lean manner overall,” said Aatrey in the email. This was Meesho’s third round of layoffs, having fired 450 employees over two layoffs in 2022 before.

A Meesho spokesperson told Inc42 that the exiting employees will be entitled to a separation package that includes a one-time payment of 2.5-9 months, depending on the tenure and designation, insurance benefits, job placement support and accelerated vesting of ESOPs by one year.

April 29 | Data Startup Cogito Laid Off 177 Employees 

New York and Delhi NCR-based automation startup Cogito fired 177 employees after the project they were working on was scrapped, leading to protests by the impacted employees who claimed they were not paid any remunerations before being let go.

Speaking with Inc42, Cogito CTO Rohit Agrawal said, “Due to the current market environment, a client of ours decided to abruptly ramp down their operations,” which led to the 177 employees working on the project being let go.

He further refuted the employees’ claims and added that every employee was paid April salaries and they were satisfied with the company’s actions.

April 26 | Inc42 Exclusive: Edtech Startup Extramarks Fires 300 Employees

Edtech platform Extramarks laid off over 300 employees in a restructuring exercise as it is looking to shut down its B2C vertical, sources told Inc42. While most of the employees let go were from the closing B2C vertical, employees from sales, customer support, HR, marketing, tech, and content teams were also impacted.

While Extramarks has stopped onboarding new students for its B2C vertical, it would continue to provide its services to the existing students.

The company did not respond to Inc42’s queries. In an internal mail seen by Inc42, the startup said it would pay the laid off employees salary till April 20 and an additional pay as per their respective notice periods.

April 25 | Inc42 Exclusive: Skill-Lync Lays Off 400 Employees

Skill-Lync, which provides job opportunities to students upon completion of the programme, fired over 400 employees in a restructuring exercise, sources told Inc42. The impacted employees were from sales, marketing, pre-sales, tech and talent acquisition departments.

Skill-Lync cofounder SuryaNarayanan PaneerSelvam informed the employees about the layoffs in an internal mail and attributed it to the “recent macroeconomic conditions”. Inc42 has accessed the mail sent by PaneerSelvam. “This doesn’t reflect in any way on the performance of the individual,” the cofounder wrote in the mail.

The startup offered severance packages to the laid off employees based on their respective notice periods. Besides, Skill-Lync also closed the shutters of its Delhi NCR office post the latest layoff round, the sources told Inc42.

April 20 | Neobanking Unicorn OPEN Fires 47 Employees Citing Performance

Neobanking unicorn OPEN laid off 47 employees based on performance evaluation, the company said. OPEN also said that all four of its cofounders have taken a 50% salary cut. However, it added no other employee will be subjected to any such pay cuts.

“While 47 Openers were exited based on performance, the company is actively recruiting for critical functions such as growth marketing, product, and sales functions to continue growing the business and better serve its customers,” OPEN said in a statement.

“As a part of scale up and profitability, OPEN will continue the efforts to make a highly performance-oriented effective organisation fit for scale and is one of the very few startups with visibility on profitability and runway above 30 months to well face the market conditions,” said the cofounder Anish Achuthan.

The startup has offered a one-month notice period worth of salary to the impacted employees.

April 19 | BNPL Soonicorn Simpl Fires 120-150 Employees In A Cost-Cutting Exercise

BNPL platform Simpl fired an undisclosed number of employees, though media outlets have reported between 120 and 150 people impacted by the layoffs. It was not immediately clear as to which teams were impacted by the layoffs.

“In lieu of the current economic condition and preparing for the new economic reality, we’ve re-looked at our headcount towards becoming a leaner and agile organisation. We are sincerely grateful to the employees for their valuable contribution,” a Simpl spokesperson told Inc42.

Simpl’s cofounder and CEO Nitya Sharma reportedly did a virtual town hall and informed employees that the move would help the startup extend its runway. The startup has offered a severance package to the outgoing employees, though it did not share the details of the package with Inc42.

April 17 | FamPay Sees Top Level Exits, Fires Employees Amid Funding Crunch

Teen-focused fintech platform FamPay fired employees as it looks to extend its runway amid an ongoing funding winter. The startup also saw head of engineering Shobhit Gupta, Brijesh Bhardwaj, who oversaw product and growth and Fatema Raja, who led the design team, resign from the startup.

While media reports suggested that FamPay fired up to 50 employees, the startup’s founder said in a tweet that that less than 10 employees have been impacted by the retrenchments.

FamPay saw its loss widen to INR 50 Cr in FY23 from INR 43.3 Cr reported in the previous fiscal. The fintech company posted a meagre INR 3 Cr in operating revenue in the year ended March 2022.

April 14 | Inc42 Exclusive: Drip Capital Fires 20% Staff Without A Clear Reason

Trade financing startup Drip Capital laid off about 20% of its 400-member workforce in November last year in a restructuring exercise, sources told Inc42. The tech, engineering and sales departments took the biggest hit in the retrenchments.

The sources told Inc42 that the startup did not give a clear reason for the layoffs, and when Inc42 reached out to the startup on the matter, it declined to comment. The sources said that CEO Pushkar Mukewar announced the business restructuring plan during a town hall meeting with all employees in mid-November last year.

Within hours, the impacted employees were separately asked to resign over emails. Drip Capital gave a two-month salary as severance pay to the impacted employees and it cleared the full and final payments within 15 days.

April 10 | EV Maker Euler Motors Fires 10% Workforce Six Months After Raising $60 Mn

EV manufacturer Euler Motors has laid off 10% of its employees across departments citing restructuring. While the company’s LinkedIn page shows around 500 employees, taking the number of impacted employees to 50, an Inc42 source said the number was between 180 and 200.

“We are restructuring our company to better deliver to customers as well as to investor expectations of greater efficiency in the context of changing global circumstances,” said a company spokesperson in a statement on Monday (April 10).

The startup claimed that it has provided “appropriate” severance to the laid-off employees. The layoffs come after its net loss almost doubled to INR 36.3 Cr in FY22.

April 8 | Healthech Major Practo Fires 41 Employees

Practo fired 41 employees as part of its performance management and planning process. In a statement sent to Inc42, the startup confirmed the development saying that it will provide all required support to the impacted employees.

At the same time, the company claimed that it was not undergoing any restructuring exercise and that the employees were handed pink slips over performance issues.

“… as part of our continuous performance management and planning process, we had to part ways with 41 employees in accordance with their employment contracts. As always, we are and will remain fully committed to providing the requisite support to all employees who may be impacted,” a company spokesperson said.

April 7 | ZestMoney Fires 20-30% Workforce As PhonePe Deal Collapses

ZestMoney has laid off between 20% and 30% of its workforce as part of a cost-cutting exercise after PhonePe cancelled its plan to acquire the BNPL platform. While Inc42 sources said the number was close to 30%, other media outlets reported a number close to 20%, translating to about 100 employees impacted across departments.

Sources further said a sizeable chunk of the employees are moving to PhonePe, even as the fintech decacorn pulled the plug on the deal to buy ZestMoney over multiple issues, including due-diligence issues, disagreements over valuation, sustainability of the business and the shareholding structure.

ZestMoney has paid the impacted employees one month’s salary as severance pay and other benefits like insurance and mental health assistance.

April 6 | Dunzo Fires 30% Staff In Second Layoffs In Three Months

Dunzo went for another round of layoffs within three months as it fired 30% of its employees ahead of a business model shift. Reportedly, the number of impacted employees comes to around 300.

Following the layoffs, the quick commerce unicorn will shut down 50% of its dark stores and run only those which can either be profitable or are close to being profitable. Dunzo will partner with supermarkets and other merchants wherever it shuts down dark stores.

The unicorn’s consolidated loss in FY22 widened 2X to INR 464 Cr from INR 229 Cr in FY21 on the back of a doubling of its expenses.

April 4 | 1K Kirana Fires 40% Employees Citing Restructuring

Gurugram-based Kirana tech startup 1K Kirana fired 40% of its workforce, citing a restructuring and closure of operations in a few regions.

As per the startup’s LinkedIn page, it had 1,052 employees at the beginning of April, taking the impacted employees to 421. However, media reports suggest the number could be more than 600 employees.

In a statement shared with Inc42, 1K Kirana cofounder Kumar Sangeetesh said, “We are currently in the process of restructuring as our growth forecasts have changed. We are changing our focus areas and moving out of a few geographies. Due to this, we have to let go of 40% of our employees. All the employees will be given severances and we will assist them with outplacements.”

The development comes less than a year after the startup raised $25 Mn in a Series B funding round in May 2022.

March 30 | Temasek-Backed Blue-Collar Jobs Platform GoodWorker Fires 90% Staff Ahead Of Acquisition

Bengaluru-based blue-collar job discovery platform GoodWorker, backed by the likes of Temasek, fired 90% of its employees, per a DealStreetAsia report. The retrenchments have impacted employees across departments.

Per the startup’s LinkedIn page, it has 190 employees, therefore, the retrenchments could have impacted as many as 171 employees. GoodWorker has also been reportedly acquired by Affinidi, a Singapore-based decentralised identity verification platform, which is also backed by Temasek.

Interestingly, GoodWorker is a joint venture between SchoolNet and LemmaTree, and the latter is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Temasek. As such, the retrenchments and the fire sale seems to have been orchestrated by the Singapore-based investor.

March 30 | Unacademy Fires 12% Of Workforce In Fourth Round Of Layoffs In 12 Months

Unacademy fired 12% of its workforce in the fourth round of layoffs at the edtech unicorn. While media outlets reported a number of around 380 employees, according to Inc42 data, the number would be around 540, post the three layoffs it has done before.

In a Slack message sent to the team, Unacademy CEO and cofounder Gaurav Munjal said, “We have taken every step in the right direction to make our core business profitable, yet it’s not enough. We have to go further, we have to go deeper.”

He added, “Unfortunately, this has led me to take another difficult decision. We will be reducing the size of our team by 12% to ensure that we can meet the goals we are chasing in the current realities we face.”

The outgoing employees will be eligible for a severance pay equivalent to the notice period and an additional month’s pay, along with accelerated vesting of one year for employees that were with Unacademy for at least one year.

March 30 | Inc42 Exclusive: FanClash Fires 75% Workforce Following Business Model Pivot

Delhi NCR-based fantasy esports startup FanClash laid off around 75% of its workforce this year, according to Inc42 sources. The startup undertook the layoff exercise in three rounds and fired about 100 employees, the sources said.

Apart from firing employees, the startup also shut down FanGuild, a fantasy Web3 gaming platform, and halted operations of its fan engagement platform FanSpace.

“Considering the temporary uncertain environment towards mobile esports, we had no option but to restructure our business which meant that we had to ask 75% of our workforce to leave,” said a company source, requesting anonymity.

Inc42 sources added that the impacted employees were given a two-month salary as a severance package.

March 17 | Freshworks Goes For Round Two Of Layoffs

Freshworks undertook a fresh round of retrenchments, a second round of layoffs in the past three months. Without specifying the number of employees impacted in the exercise, Freshworks said that the move has been made to strengthen organisational and operational efficiencies.

“Freshworks has not conducted org-wide layoffs and continues to hire for open positions. We continue to review organisational efficiencies to avoid duplicated efforts and maintain a strong performance culture. As a result, a small number of individuals are impacted and are leaving the company,” a Freshworks spokesperson said.

The development came three months after Freshworks fired ‘less than 2%’ of its workforce amid an organisational reshuffle.

March 15 | Inc42 Exclusive: Home Decor Unicorn LivSpace Fires 100 Employees Citing Restructuring

Home renovation and interiors platform Livspace fired 100 employees, or 2% of its workforce, as part of a cost-cutting exercise, sources told Inc42. Product, engineering, content, and marketing teams were the most impacted by the layoffs, a source added.

“Our focus continues to be on the most efficient deployment of capital and resources to maximize value for our shareholders, customers, partners and employees,” the company said in a statement, adding, “in a company of our size, we will, in the normal course of our operations, redeploy resources. This is organic and a reflection of normal adjustments and/or performance management parameters.”

Without sharing details, LivSpace said it is extending an assistance package and healthcare coverage to the impacted employees. The startup has raised close to $430 Mn across funding rounds, entering the unicorn club in February 2022.

March 15 | Inc42 Exclusive: Retailtech Startup Dukaan Fires 30% Workforce Citing Restructuring

Retail tech startup Dukaan laid off around 56 employees, or around 30% of its workforce, sources told Inc42. The layoffs, due to a change in Dukaan’s focus to D2C brands from SMBs, affected inside sales team and account managers.

Dukaan offered a two-month salary as a severance package to the impacted employees. Suumit Shah, Dukaan’s founder and CEO, confirmed the development to Inc42.

Dukaan last raised $12.4 Mn in its pre-Series A round, led by 640 Oxford Ventures, in September 2021. In all, the retailtech startup has raised more than $18 Mn in funding across its seed and Pre-Series A round.

March 6 | upGrad Campus Lays Off 30% Workforce Amid Prolonged Funding Winter

Video learning platform upGrad Campus fired 30% of its total workforce, accounting for nearly 120 employees, Indian Express reported. It was unclear if the layoffs were targeted at a specific department within the startup.

Impartus, as upGrad Campus was known prior to its acquisition in March 2021, operates independently as an upGrad subsidiary. The layoffs at upGrad Campus are the second one at a subsidiary of the Ronnie Screwvala-led edtech unicorn.

In January, Harappa Education, which was acquired by upGrad in July 2022 for $38 Mn, fired 40% of the workforce or about 73 employees.

March 2 | Inc42 Exclusive: Fitness Startup Fittr Fires 11% Workforce Citing Role Redundancy

Pune-based fitness startup Fittr laid off 11% of its workforce, or around 30 employees, across marketing, sales, client servicing and tech teams, sources told Inc42. The sources added that the company may have fired as many as 60 employees, though the claim remained unconfirmed.

In a statement given to Inc42, the cofounder and CEO of Fittr, Jitendra Chouksey, said the company had to let go of people due to role redundancy (11% of the total workforce in a span of 6-8 months). “Meanwhile, we did hire to backfill certain critical positions,” Chouksey added.

According to Fittr’s MCA filings, it slipped into losses in FY22. The startup registered a loss of INR 25.2 Cr in FY22 against a profit of INR 49.04 Lakh in FY21, even though its revenue from operations rose to INR 83.05 Cr in FY22 from INR 52.7 Cr in FY21.

March 1 | Conversational AI Startup Yellow.ai Lays Off 15% Employees Amid Funding Winter

Conversational AI startup Yellow.ai has fired 15% of its employees since August, on account of slow growth and a bloated workforce. According to media reports, the SaaS startup has carried out two layoffs between August 2022 and February 2023.

The startup has 1,063 employees, according to its LinkedIn profile. Confirming the development to Inc42, a Yellow.ai spokesperson said, “We had to reorganise some of the teams to double down on high-priority, high-growth areas, which in turn has affected 15% of the company.” The spokesperson added that the company is supporting the outgoing employees, without sharing details of any severance packages.

The layoffs come just months after Yellow.ai announced a $43 Mn ESOP plan for its employees. The startup has raised more than $102 Mn across funding rounds so far, with the latest round coming in August 2021 when Yellow.ai raised $78.15 Mn from the likes of WestBridge Capital, Sapphire Ventures and Salesforce Ventures.

February 22 | Edtech Startup Camp K12 Fires 70% Employees

Edtech startup Camp K12 reportedly fired 70% of its workforce without paying any dues to the impacted employees. While Inc42 could not reach Camp K12, media reports suggest that it might have laid off as many as 300 employees, of the 433 it had, according to its LinkedIn account.

According to media reports, the coding edtech startup has not paid salaries to its employees since December 2022; the layoffs took place in January 2023. The company has allegedly not paid any salaries to the impacted employees and it is not letting the remaining employees resign either.

Another edtech startup on the verge of capitulation, Camp K12 has raised $16 Mn in funding across two rounds, with the startup last raising $12 Mn in August 2021.

February 21 | Crypto Startup Polygon Fires 20% Staff As Crypto Winter Extends

Ethereum Layer-2 scaling startup Polygon laid off around 20% of its workforce, or 100 employees, as part of a restructuring exercise amid the ongoing crypto winter. The startup has fired employees across multiple business functions.

“Earlier this year, we consolidated multiple business units under Polygon Labs. As part of this process, we’re sharing the difficult news that we’ve reduced our team by 20% impacting multiple teams and about 100 positions,” the startup said in a blog post.

Polygon said that the employees impacted will receive a three months’ pay as severance, regardless of their level or tenure. The layoffs come a year after Polygon raised $450 Mn in a funding round, led by Sequoia India

February 20 | Security Management Startup MyGate Fires 30% Staff Amid Funding Crunch

Community and security management startup MyGate has reportedly laid off 30% of its employees across mid-management and junior roles. The startup’s total headcount was reduced from 600 pre-layoffs to 400.

Only a few laid off employees were offered a salary of two months as a severance package, while others did not receive severance at all, according to media reports.

Founded in 2016, MyGate offers security solutions for apartment complexes at entry and exit gates, along with other security systems such as RFID cards, biometrics and vehicle stickers. It has raised $79.5 Mn in VC funding to date.

February 14 | Inc42 Exclusive: Healthtech Platform Phablecare Faces Capitulation, Fires 350 Employees

In another startup capitulation story amid the harsh funding winter, healthtech platform Phablecare has fired 350 employees, nearly 50% of its workforce. The startup is currently facing a funding crisis and has held back the salaries of employees.

While sources told Inc42 that Phablecare has laid off around 350-400 employees so far, hundreds voluntarily resigned due to the delays in getting their salaries. The founders are yet to revert to a detailed questionnaire sent by Inc42.

In the meanwhile, the founders communicated to the staff as late as January that they were trying to raise funds. Phablecare’s situation is still developing as its day-to-day operations have taken a beating.

February 14 | Prime Venture-Backed HackerEarth Fires 9% Employees, Introduce Pay Cuts

Tech-focused skilling and hiring startup HackerEarth laid off nearly 9% of its employees working in different verticals, according to media reports. The number of employees impacted was around 17 of a total headcount of 190.

Sachin Gupta, CEO of HackerEarth, said, “2020 and 2021 were years of strong growth for us. We built a team in anticipation of this trend continuing. Instead, the second half of 2022 saw a slowdown in hiring, which resulted in lower growth in our business than what we had prepared ourselves for.”

HackerEarth has provided a severance package including eight weeks of pay to impacted employees. While employees with more than two years of stint in the company have been given one additional week of pay for every year of their service.

February 6 | FilterCopy Parent Pocket Aces Fires 25% Staff To Cut Costs

Digital entertainment startup Pocket Aces, which owns YouTube channels such as FilterCopy and Dice Media, fired a quarter of its workforce, or about 25 employees. The job cuts impacted employees in content, production and post-production teams.

Aditi Shrivastava, cofounder and CEO of Pocket Aces, told Inc42, “It has been a tough decision to part with some of our talented team members and friends. However, we must keep innovating our operating models, and this is the right thing to do in order to ensure that we remain agile with the changing audience preferences. We deeply care about the people leaving us and will provide them with financial support, and ongoing health insurance coverage and help them with their transition.”

The company further added that it would keep engaging with some of the outgoing employees on a freelance basis.

February 3 | Inc42 Exclusive: SaaS Logistics Startup FarEye Fires 90 Employees In Layoffs Round Two

Microsoft-backed SaaS logistics startup FarEye laid off 90 employees in a second round of layoffs in just eight months. The startup has fired 340 employees or around 45% of its workforce before the first layoffs. The job cuts impacted people across tech, product, HRBP and sales, sources told Inc42.

Confirming the layoffs, FarEye cofounder and CEO Kushal Nahata told Inc42 in a statement, “The reduction in staff was necessary to align business strategy with market demand and continue to serve our customers’ business needs, as has always been our mission. Our focus on product innovation and customer solutions remains strong, and we will continue to expand our reach in new industries and markets around the globe.”

While the startup did not go into the specifics, it said it has offered severance packages to the impacted employees as per the local laws.

January 27 | Ecommerce Unicorn DealShare Fires 100 Employees To Cut Costs

Tiger Global-backed grocery delivery unicorn DealShare fired 100 employees or about 7% of its 1,500-strong workforce in a bid to reduce monthly burn rate. The move impacted employees across all teams, according to the unicorn’s founder Sourjyendu Medda.

“We have removed the roles as a result of the current market conditions. We look at the business plan for the year and we have reduced the focus on some of the areas which would need very long-term capital infusion before becoming totally profitable,” said Medda, confirming the development to Inc42.

The grocery delivery unicorn did not specify the details of the severance benefits the outgoing employees would be entitled to.

January 25 | Inc42 Exclusive: SaaS Startup SirionLabs Fires 130 Employees Days After Raising $25 Mn

Sequoia and Tiger Global-backed SaaS startup SirionLabs fired around 15% of its total workforce, or about 130 employees, days after announcing a Series D fundraise of $25 Mn, Inc42 exclusively reported. Employees in DevOps, analysts, and support teams were impacted by the layoffs.

In a mail sent to the employees, Ajay Agrawal, the founder and CEO of the contract management startup, informed the employees about the decision. Inc42 has reviewed the mail sent to the employees by Agrawal. In the mail, Agrawal said that the startup has to shift its business strategy towards profitability due to the current macroeconomic environment, and this will result in downsizing.  

SirionLabs offered a salary of two months as a severance package to the impacted employees.

January 24 | Inc42 Exclusive: Healthtech Unicorn Innovaccer Goes For Second Layoff Round, Fires 245 Employees

Tiger Global-backed healthtech unicorn Innovaccer fired around 15% of its workforce, or 245 employees, in the second round of sackings at the unicorn within four months. The layoffs impacted teams in India and the US across multiple departments, Inc42 exclusively reported.

Confirming the development with Inc42, the unicorn’s cofounder and CEO Abhinav Shashank cited an ‘uncertain macroeconomic environment’ as the reason for the second round of layoffs. The cofounder said that Innovaccer will deprioritise certain areas that distract the unicorn from its “core portfolio”.

The startup will offer severance packages to the impacted employees along with transitional health insurance benefits, and job placement support, an Innovaccer spokesperson told Inc42. The round of layoffs also comes after the unicorn fired 90 employees in September 2022.

January 23 | India’s First Unicorn InMobi Fires 50-70 Employees After Performance Review

InMobi, India’s first-ever unicorn, fired around 50-70 employees or about 3% of its workforce after it concluded a performance review, Business Standard reported. The impacted employees are both from InMobi and its mobile advertising platform Glance.

“InMobi/Glance is in the market actively hiring talent for the ambitious plans that we have. We also evaluate the performance of our existing talent on an annual basis and make decisions based on it. This is business as usual for us and part of our annual process. This year is no different,” the adtech company was cited as saying.

The company also announced that it will skip increments for CY23 and also undertake recruitment only when required.

January 20 | Inc42 Exclusive: MediBuddy Fires 200 Employees After Restructuring

Lightrock India-backed healthtech startup MediBuddy fired around 200 employees after conducting a restructuring exercise. The tech, product, sales and operations teams were the worst impacted because of the sudden layoffs, sources told Inc42.

“While layoffs are never easy and it is painful in the short term, this was to realign our current business goals for long-term stability and growth. In this entire process of realignment, we had to part with 8% of the workforce across all departments as a one-time restructuring exercise and eliminate any redundancy in roles and responsibilities,” MediBuddy said in a written statement.

MediBuddy said it would provide outplacement assistance to the impacted employees. Further, it has designed a care package that includes MediBuddy wallet continuity and extended health coverage.

January 20 | Swiggy Lays Off 380 Employees Citing Restructuring To Cut Costs

Food delivery major Swiggy fired 380 employees as part of a restructuring exercise to cut costs, founder and CEO Sriharsha Majety said in an email to the employees on January 20. The layoffs impacted around 5% of Swiggy’s workforce.

“While we’d already initiated actions on other indirect costs like infrastructure, office/facilities, etc, we needed to right-size our overall personnel costs also in line with the projections for the future,” added the CEO. The layoffs come after Swiggy reported a 2.2X growth in its losses, which reached INR 3,628.9 Cr in FY 22 compared to INR 1,616.9 Cr in FY21.

Swiggy is offering several benefits to the outgoing employees, including a payout worth at least three months of salary, including all the bonuses and incentives. Employees can also avail of the payout equivalent to their notice period, plus 15 days ex-gratia for every completed year of service.

January 19 | Hubilo Goes For A Second Layoff, Fires 115 Employees 

Event management startup Hubilo laid off 115 employees or around 35% of its workforce in a restructuring exercise.

In a written statement, the startup said, “Hubilo has made the difficult decision to restructure the company amid global macroeconomic conditions. Approximately 35% of the company was laid off as a result. We have made our best effort to ensure that the impacted employees are supported with generous severance packages as well as outplacement services to give them a smooth transition.”

Hubilo fired employees for the second time in six months after it fired around 45-50 employees in July 2022.

January 17 | Inc42 Exclusive: Exotel Lays Off 80 Employees

Bengaluru-based cloud telephony platform Exotel laid off 142 employees, or 15% of its workforce, citing their poor performance, sources told Inc42.

The layoffs took place following a revision in the startup’s performance improvement plan (PIP) policy in November 2022, under which Exotel removed the clause of giving two warnings to employees for below par performance.

However, a company spokesperson told Inc42 in a statement that 80 employees were impacted due to the revision in PIP policy and business restructuring.

An Exotel spokesperson, without confirming or denying the number of employees sacked, attributed the recent layoff exercise at the startup to restructuring and mid-year review. 

“Recently, some members of our team have been affected due to our restructuring efforts (3%) & the mid-year review, business as usual performance improvement planning process (less than 5%),” the spokesperson said.

January 17 | Auto After-Sales Service Platform GoMechanic Fires 70% Employees

Automobile after-sales service startup GoMechanic sacked nearly 70% of its workforce, which amounted to nearly 500 employees being fired. 

While Inc42 could not immediately verify the details, media reports noted that the startup’s backer Sequoia has launched a forensic audit of its finances amid allegations of financial irregularities at the startup. The startup is said to have a total loans of INR 120 Cr and ‘market pendency’ of INR 40 Cr.

The Gurugram-based startup needs to raise funds in the ‘next few months, sources familiar with the development added, as the startup does not have any runway beyond that.

January 16 | Quick Commerce Soonicorn Dunzo Fires 3% Workforce After Shutting Dark Stores

Reliance-backed quick commerce startup Dunzo laid off nearly 3% of its workforce, having shut down a few dark stores a few months ago. While the startup did not clarify how many employees left the organisation, media reports reported a number between 60 and 80.

“Whatever the numbers, these are people who chose to build their careers with Dunzo, and it is sad to have talented colleagues leave us. We are extending the best support possible to help them during this transition,” Dunzo CEO and cofounder Kabeer Biswas said in a statement.

As with the number of employees fired, Dunzo did not clarify the severance packages given to the impacted employeer, nor the departments the employees were fired from.

January 16 | Foodtech Unicorn Rebel Foods Fires 50 Employees Citing Performance Review

Foodtech unicorn Rebel Foods fired 50 employees, or about 2% of its workforce, citing an annual performance review at the startup. The startup did not provide details on the departments the employees were fired from or the sewerage benefits the said employees would be entitled to, if any.

“Any news heard is on account of annual performance evaluation and realigning the organisation to our priorities for future goals. The impacted number is less than 2% of our organisational strength,” a Rebel Foods spokesperson said.

The layoffs come after the startup‘s net loss widened 55% YoY to INR 564.4 Cr in FY22 from INR 364 Cr in FY21, while its revenue also doubled to INR 907 Cr from INR 436.5 Cr in FY21.

January 16 | ShareChat, Moj Parent Mohalla Tech Fires 500 Employees 

Mohalla Tech Pvt Ltd, the parent company of content platforms Sharechat and Moj fired 500 employees or about 20% of its workforce. It was not immediately clear which departments were impacted by the layoffs.

In a statement, a Sharechat and Moj spokesperson said, “We’ve had to take some of the most difficult and painful decisions in our history as a company and had to let go of around 20% of our incredibly talented employees who have been with us in this startup journey.”

The impacted employees will be receiving the entire salary of their notice periods, two-weeks’ pay for each year served with the company and 100% of the variable pay till December 2022. Also, the company will allow impacted employees to encash unused leave balance of up to 45 days, while also allowing them to keep their office assets, such as laptops.

January 13 | Inc42 Exclusive: SaaS Start Skit.ai Fires 115 Employees Citing Restructuring

Bengaluru-based SaaS voice automation startup Skit.ai laid off around 115 employees citing restructuring at the firm, sources told Inc42. The sources added that the number could be as high as 130. The layoffs were announced by Skit.ai CEO and cofounder Sourabh Gupta during a town hall meeting. 

The startup has fired employees across business analyst, software engineering, product, operations, SPM and CSM roles, the sources said. Most of the laid off employees are from the India team as the startup shifts its focus to the US market, according to Inc42 sources.

The startup has offered two months of salary as a severance package to the laid off employees and will extend their insurance coverage for the next six months, while also allowing employees to keep their assets such as laptops and iPads, documents reviewed by Inc42 showed.

January 12 | Crypto Unicorn CoinDCX Fires Employees As Part Of Restructuring Drive

Crypto unicorn CoinDCX fired some employees as part of a restructuring drive at the cryptocurrency exchange, a source close to the development told Inc42. 

While the number was not immediately verifiable, media reports suggest that the crypto exchange has fired around 50 people from the sales and marketing teams at the company, or around 8% of its total workforce. The impacted employees have reportedly been given a month’s severance pay and let go after serving their notice periods. 

The layoffs come as a prolonged crypto winter and the recent collapses of FTX and Terra Luna have shaken the public confidence in crypto as an asset class in India.

January 12 | Payments Soonicorn Cashfree Sacks 80 Employees Citing Organisational Reshuffle

Fintech platform Cashfree Payments sacked 80 employees – as many as 13% of its workforce – across several teams as part of an organisational restructuring, sources told Inc42. The fintech soonicorn could have fired as many as 120 people, but that could not be verified.

However, the company claimed that only 6-8% of the employees were affected by the retrenchment. The details of any severance packages or any other benefits that the outgoing employees would have been entitled to were not clear either.

“The organisation has reevaluated the relevance of certain roles and functions leading to movement of talent within teams and a few employee exits. This process of organisational restructuring has impacted around 6-8% of employees,” said a Cashfree spokesperson.

January 12 | Ola Fires 200 Employees Citing Restructuring

Mobility startup Ola fired 200 employees across verticals, citing an organisational restructuring. The laid off employees are from Ola Cabs, Ola Electric, and Ola Financial Services verticals, sources told Inc42.

Confirming the development, a Ola spokesperson told Inc42 in a statement, “We regularly conduct restructuring exercises to improve efficiencies, and there are roles which are now redundant. We will continue making new hires in engineering and design including senior talent in our key priority areas.”

The company offered severance packages as per their respective notice periods, they said, adding that the layoffs began earlier this week. 

January 10 | LEAD Fires Another 60 Employees, Takes Total Layoffs To 100

Mumbai-based edtech startup LEAD laid off around 60 employees, mostly from the tech and product teams. However, the startup told Inc42 that it was a regular churn due to business activities.

In a statement shared with Inc42, LEAD said, “We have grown 2X this year and are hiring for growth. If projects don’t meet success criteria or don’t fit our strategic roadmap, teams are either re-assigned or asked to seek other opportunities. This is a regular business activity and a normal churn of 1-2 % in an organisation of 2,000 people.”

The layoffs came shortly after LEAD raised INR 35 Cr in debt from Alteria Capital, and shortly after the layoffs, the startup raised INR 160 Cr. 

January 10 | Unacademy-Owned Relevel Fires 40 Employees As Company Pivots

Unacademy-owned Relevel plans to lay off 40 employees or nearly 20% of its workforce. In an internal mail sent to employees, Unacademy CEO and cofounder Gaurav Munjal cited Relevel’s pivot from core education business to test product business and focus on the newly launched NextLevel app as the reason for the layoffs.

“Almost 80% of Relevel’s remaining team will be absorbed by other businesses of Unacademy Group and we will have to let go of around 20% (around 40 people) of the team because of lack of availability of roles for them,” Munjal said in the mail. 

The impacted employees would be provided with severance pay equal to the notice period and an additional two months. Besides, the company also said that the laid off workers would also get accelerated vesting, medical insurance and placement support.

January 6 | Bike Rental & EV Startup Bounce Fires 3-4% Of Staff Citing Restructuring

Bike rental and electric vehicle (EV) startup Bounce laid off around 3-4% of its total workforce as part of an ongoing ‘restructuring drive’. The layoffs largely affected customer service and other segments, Bounce said.

A company spokesperson told Inc42 that the employees were “let go off” phase wise and the exercise largely affected the non-original equipment manufacturer (OEM) vertical. As per the company, the layoffs largely affected customer service and other segments.

It is prudent to mention that media reports have mentioned a much higher number, to the tune of almost 250 employees being fired. The startup, however, has denied the claims.

January 5 | Ecommerce Rollup UpScalio Fires 15% Of Staff Citing Performance Review

UpScalio became the first Thrasio-style startup in the country to lay off employees, as it fired around 15% of its staff citing a performance review.

In a statement shared with Inc42, Ankur Singh, head of people and culture at UpScalio, said, “While UpScalio has been able to grow aggressively, we always keep a keen eye on profitability. As part of our standard annual employee appraisal process, in December, we have let go of 15% of our staff.”

The layoffs come nine months after the ecommerce rollup startup raised $15 Mn in its pre-Series B funding round in March 2022. UpScalio has raised around $60 Mn from investors across funding rounds.

January 5 | B2B Marketplace Moglix Fires 40 Employees Citing Automation

B2B industrial goods marketplace Moglix fired 40 employees – around 6% of its total workforce – citing process automation and performance reviews. While other media reports mentioned the number could be as high as 200, Inc42 could not independently verify the same.

“We have hired 700+ people this year and continue to expand with a target to hire 300+ people for 2023. We keep a watch out for low performers and continue to automate tasks, for which annually 2-3% of people can be impacted,” said Moglix in a statement.

Moglix posted a loss of INR $21.03 Mn in FY22, up 88.1% from $11.18 Mn in FY21. At the same time, its revenue rose 192% to $306.9 Mn from $105.2 Mn in FY21.

January 4 | upGrad-Owned Harappa Education Fires 40% Of Workforce After Business Model Change

upGrad-owned edtech startup Harappa Education fired around 73 employees – about 40% of its workforce – in the first layoff of 2023. The startup laid off employees from content, design, product, and marketing teams, sources told Inc42.

Harappa might just see more layoffs this month, as sources told Inc42 that more employees are likely to lose their jobs in the coming days. “This is the first phase of layoffs and there could be more. It seems that two lists were made – one for December and the other for January. Hence, in January more layoffs are expected,” the sources told Inc42.

Harappa Education was acquired by edtech unicorn upGrad for $38 Mn (INR 300 Cr) in July 2022. Last September, upGrad announced plans to invest $40 Mn (INR 320 Cr) in Harappa Education to drive the edtech’s growth.

December 26 | PayU India Fires 150 Employees After Org Reshuffle

PayU India, the payments and fintech unit Prosus, laid off around 6% of its workforce or around 150 employees citing an organisational reshuffle in India. The layoffs mainly affected PayU India’s digital payment security and mobile payment technology unit Wibmo, which it acquired for $70 Mn in 2019.

“Keeping in mind our highest strategic priorities, we are realigning teams across some of [our] businesses in India. As a result of which, regretfully we will to have part ways with some of our colleagues,” a PayU spokesperson told Inc42.

The layoffs at PayU happened despite the fintech achieving profitability in FY22. The startup’s FY22 results showed a profit of INR 126 Cr against revenue of INR 2,130.3 Cr.

December 16 | Listed SaaS Unicorn Freshworks Fires 90 Employees Citing Org Rejig

Nasdaq-listed enterprisetech major Freshworks fired around 90 employees as part of an organisational reshuffle, or about 2% of its total workforce. The employees were fired across sales, marketing, and engineering verticals.

“We shifted some existing roles in product, marketing and sales to support more critical initiatives and reduced the need for a small number of others – less than 2% of our workforce. Freshworks did not do a company-wide layoff,” said a Freshworks spokesperson. The company paid severance packages and other settlements to the impacted employees.

In the third quarter of FY22, Freshworks reported consolidated revenue of $128.8 Mn, up 37% YoY. During the same period, the company narrowed its losses to $58.3 Mn from $107.4 Mn during the year-ago period.

December 8 | Swiggy Lays Off 250+ Employees Citing Performance Review

Foodtech unicorn Swiggy joined its competitor Zomato in having fired employees in 2022, with news coming that it may lay off 250+ employees or around 3% of its total workforce after a performance review.

“We concluded our performance cycle in October and have announced ratings and promotions at all levels. As with every cycle, we expect exits based on performance,” a Swiggy spokesperson told Inc42. The layoffs come off the back of Jefferies reporting that Swiggy’s losses during H1 FY23 were six times higher than Zomato’s standalone losses during the same time. 

Swiggy’s losses in the first half of FY23 were at around $315 Mn (INR 2,570 Cr), while Zomato’s standalone loss during the period remained around the $50 Mn (INR 410 Cr) mark.

December 7 | Vedantu Fires Another 385 Employees, Takes Total Layoffs To 1,109

Edtech unicorn Vedantu fired employees for the fourth time this month, laying off 385 people to take the total count to 1,109. The layoffs have impacted people from sales, HR and content teams.

The latest layoff comes around a month after the unicorn acquired a majority stake in Karnataka-based test prep platform Deeksha for $40 Mn. Internal sources told Inc42 that the startup was left with around 18 months of runway, prompting the decision to let go of employees again. Vedantu is left with 3,300 employees after the latest firings.

Vedantu is offering a salary of two months as a severance package and has extended the medical coverage for the fired employees till March 31, 2023, according to Inc42 sources.

December 3 | Inc42 Exclusive: Healthtech Startup HealthifyMe Fires 150 Employees Citing Global Recession Fears

Health and fitness startup HealthifyMe fired 150 employees, or about 15-20% of its total workforce, citing slow growth triggered by the fears of a global recession. Employees in SME (subject matter expert), quality analytics, product and marketing roles were impacted by the layoffs.

“We have had to take the tough decision to let go 150 of our team members. Like much of tech, growth hasn’t kept pace with expectations and hiring,” the startup said in a written statement. HealthifyMe will be offering a two-month severance package and will further extend medical coverage to the impacted employees.

The layoffs come a year and a half after the startup raised $75 Mn in a Series C round of funding, having raised $100 Mn to date.

December 3 | Inc42 Exclusive: Traveltech Major OYO Fires 600 Employees Across Multiple Teams

IPO-bound hospitality chain OYO fired 600 employees from tech roles in product and engineering teams. The layoffs come after OYO decided to merge the two teams.

“The downsizing in tech is also happening in teams which were developing pilots and proof of concepts such as in-app gaming, social content curation and patron-facilitated content,” said OYO in a statement. However, the hospitality chain did not provide any details of the benefits the outgoing employees would be entitled to.

Ritesh Agrawal, founder and CEO of OYO, added, “We will be doing all that we can to ensure that most of the people we are having to let go, are gainfully employed.” The layoffs come after OYO posted an adjusted EBITDA of INR 56 Cr in Q2FY23, its second consecutive EBITDA-positive quarter.

December 2 | Inc42 Exclusive: ShareChat Parent Shuts Down Fantasy Cricket Subsidiary Jeet11, Fires 100 Employees

Mohalla Tech Private Ltd, the parent company of ShareChat, has shut down its fantasy gaming platform Jeet11, sources aware of the development told Inc42. Mohalla Tech has also fired 100 employees, mostly from non-tech roles within Jeet11.

The shutdown comes two years after the ShareChat and Moj parent forayed into fantasy sport. “We can confirm that we are ceasing operations of Jeet11 and have reorganized some of our functions, which meant movement of this talent within teams and a few employee exits,” Mohalla Tech said, confirming the development.

The layoffs also come almost 19 months after the startup raised $502 Mn in its Series E round, becoming the first social media unicorn in the process.

November 30 | Inc42 Exclusive: Edtech Startup Teachmint Fires 45 Employees Citing Restructuring

Joining the contingent of edtech startup firing employees, Teachmint laid off 45 employees or about 5% of its workforce citing restructuring. Inc42 exclusively reported that the layoffs were conducted across sales and operations teams.

“The impacted employees have been informed in advance and we are supporting them to the maximum extent possible,” Teachmint said in a statement given to Inc42, confirming the development.

The layoffs came almost a year after the edtech startup raised $78 Mn in a Series B round led by new investors Rocketship.vc and Vulcan Capital. Teachmint has raised $118 Mn in total to date.

November 29 | Hiring Platform Hirect Fires 200 Employees Citing Restructuring

Bengaluru and US-based hiring platform Hirect fired 40% of its workforce, or 200 employees, citing an organisational restructuring and a change in its business model.

The layoffs triggered several social media posts from employees that were fired, alleging high spending on social media influencers, non-payment of PF contributions and dues, and non-receipt of relieving letters. Others reported that the startup did not provide any severance package or job search assistance as well.

According to Crunchbase, Hirect has raised nearly $15 Mn across several rounds. Incidentally, the startup was reported to have raised $14.6 Mn in its Series A just two days after conducting layoffs.

November 28 | VerSe Lays Off 150 Employees After Raising $805 Mn In April

The parent company of DailyHunt and Josh, VerSe Innovation, laid off 150 employees, or about 5% of its workforce of 3,000 before the layoffs. The startup also decided to undertake an 11% pay cut for employees with annual salaries of more than INR 10 Lakh, according to Inc42 sources.

According to Inc42 sources, most of the layoffs happened from the short video platform, Josh. The layoffs at VerSe come just a few months after it raised $805 Mn at a valuation of $5 Bn in April this year. Incidentally, the startup did not share details of the benefits the outgoing employees would receive.

The startup’s expenses surged 2.35X to INR 3,714 Cr in FY22 from INR 1,580 Cr in FY21, while revenue from operations increased only about 45% to INR 965 Cr in FY22.

November 19 | Zomato Fires At Least 100 Employees In Performance-Related Layoffs

Listed foodtech startup Zomato became the first in its segment to fire employees amid a global economic downturn, laying off 3-4% of its workforce. In response to Inc42’s queries, a Zomato spokesperson said, “There has been a regular performance-based churn of under 3% of our workforce; there’s nothing more to it.”

Over the last few weeks, Zomato has seen several high-profile exits, including cofounder Mohit Gupta. Further, Kuwait-based startup Talabat, who bought Zomato’s UAE food delivery business in 2019, shut down Zomato’s food delivery business there.

The foodtech unicorn narrowed its loss to INR 250.8 Cr in Q2 FY23 YoY.

November 9 | B2B Insurtech Plum Fires 10% Employees Citing Restructuring

Tiger Global-backed B2B insurtech player Plum fired 10% of its workforce, or about 36 employees, as part of a cost-cutting exercise. The startup said it conducted multiple cost-cutting measures before going for layoffs.

Plum’s CEO and founder Abhishek Poddar added that the impacted employees will receive severance pay, healthcare benefits, well-being counselling, ESOP vesting and placement and career support.

Notably, the layoffs came after Poddar had said Plum would increase its employee count to 1,000 by FY23. The startup’s last funding round was its Series A round worth $15.6 Mn, which saw Tiger Global participate. In all, the startup has raised $20.6 Mn.

November 7 | Unacademy Goes For Third Layoff Round, Fires 10% Employees

Edtech unicorn Unacadamy conducted its third round of layoffs citing “unprecedented times”, as communicated to the employees in an internal email. The third round of layoffs impacted 10% of its workforce, taking the total number of employees fired by Unacademy to 1500 for the year.

The layoffs come after the edtech major had said it would not conduct further layoffs during the earlier round. However, Unacademy’s losses almost doubled year-on-year (YoY) to INR 2,848 Cr in FY22. At the same time, the startup reported consolidated revenue of INR 719 Cr in FY22.

Unacademy said that the affected employees will receive severance pay equivalent to the notice period and an additional two months. Munjal also said that the affected employees will get medical insurance coverage for an additional year and a supposed ‘dedicated’ placement support.

November 7 | Edtech Startup Practically Lays Off Employees, Cuts Down Headcount By 190 In Three Months

Hyderabad-based K-12 STEM edtech startup Practically conducted a layoff in November, firing an unconfirmed number of employees. The edtech startup has gradually reduced its headcount by 190 employees since August 2022, according to Practically’s COO and cofounder Charu Noheria.

The layoffs at Practically come a year and a half after it raised $4 Mn in January 2021, after which it could not secure funding, resulting in the layoffs. Noheria told Inc42 that Practically’s last funding round worth $5 Mn could not materialise as investors backed out. The COO noted that the current investors have helped stabilise the startup.

November 4 | B2B Ecommerce Unicorn Udaan Fires 350 In Second Layoffs This Year

B2B ecommerce unicorn Udaan fired 350 employees, stating its move to turn profitable and “achieve efficiency”. The move comes less than five months after the ecommerce unicorn fired 180 people to cut costs, which Inc42 exclusively reported.

“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,” an Udaan spokesperson told Inc42.

The layoffs at Udaan happened a week after it raised $120 Mn in debt, having raised $250 Mn in debt in January this year as well.

November 2 | SaaS Unicorn Chargebee Lays Off 10% Employees Citing Macroeconomic Conditions

Chennai-based SaaS unicorn Chargebee fired 10% of its staff citing macroeconomic conditions and a need to cut costs going forward. The development was confirmed in a LinkedIn post shared by the cofounder Kris Subramanian. The move impacted 142 employees across departments.

Chargebee said that the employees impacted will receive three months’ pay, three months of extended medical benefits and outplacement service. “This difficult decision was driven by external market forces as well as our need to address the operational debt we have accumulated in the last few years,” said Subramanian.

The layoffs come nine months after Chargebee raised $250 Mn in a funding round and nine months after it acquired collections management platform numberz.

October 12 | FrontRow Fires 125-130 Employees, Takes Layoff Total To 275

After having laid off 145 employees in May, edtech startup FrontRow laid off another 125-130 employees. With the latest layoffs, the edtech startup has laid off as much as 85% of its total workforce in less than six months.

FrontRow founder Ishaan Preet Singh said, “Unfortunately, as we realized that a sales and marketing-led approach to this market didn’t work with our current delivery model, we had to let go a large part of our team.” Singh added that the laid-off employees would receive a month’s salary as severance.

The layoffs come almost a year after the startup raised $14 Mn in its Series A funding round. FrontRow is backed by Deepika Padukone’s Family Office, Vishal Dadlani, rapper Raftaar, CRED’s Kunal Shah, Unacademy’s Gaurav Munjal and ShareChat’s Farid Ahsan.

October 12 | BYJU’S Lays Off 2,500 Employees After Notching Up INR 4,588 Cr In Losses

India’s most valuable startup BYJU’S laid off 2,500 employees from its workforce, citing its push to achieve profitability by the end of FY23. The decacorn laid off employees across product, content, media, and technology teams.

The edtech giant has also restructured its business, consolidating its K-10 acquired businesses such as Toppr, Meritnation, TutorVista, HashLearn, and Scholar into one unit, while Great Learning and Aakash would operate independently.

The move comes seven months after BYJU’S announced raising $800 Mn in a funding round and just weeks after it published its financial report for FY21. The edtech major clocked up INR 4,588 Cr in losses, almost 20X higher compared to FY20.

October 3 | WazirX Lays Off 60+ Employees Amid Crypto Winter

Indian cryptocurrency exchange WazirX laid off around 40% of its workforce, or at least 60 people, citing adverse economic conditions. The startup laid off across customer support, HR and other teams. WazirX has also relieved the entire public policy and communication team of its duties.

The laid-off employees would receive severance pay for 45 days and would not be required to report for work effective immediately. The reduced trade volumes across crypto exchanges in India prompted the startup to conduct layoffs.

The layoffs came when WazirX is facing heat from Indian authorities such as the ED on allegations of money laundering and tax evasion. Further, it was recently embroiled in a public spat with Binance after the Chinese crypto exchange denied acquiring WazirX.

September 19 | Dukaan Lays Off 23 Employees Citing Restructuring And Automation

Dukaan tech startup Dukaan laid off 23 employees citing restructuring and automation. Cofounder and CEO Suumit Shah announced the layoffs in a Twitter thread on September 19. Dukaan laid off employees in live chat support, call support and on the tech front after those processes were automated.

“Since we shifted our whole focus from the small kirana/SMB segment to enterprises/D2C brands, there wasn’t much of a role for live chat support or call support, and on the tech front, we automated a lot of stuff,” said the cofounder in a tweet.

The move comes more than a year after Dukaan raised $11 Mn in Series A; the enterprisetech startup has raised $17 Mn in funding so far.

September 19 | Ola Lays Off 200 Software Engineers As Part Of Its Restructuring Plan

Mobility giant Ola laid off 200 software engineers as part of its mega restructuring plan in a bid to centralise its operations and reduce redundancies. The startup had over 2,000 engineering roles across verticals, with 10% of them let go during the layoffs.

The unicorn has also hinted at hiring 3,000 more engineers in the coming months as part of its restructuring plan. The layoffs come after unconfirmed reports suggested the unicorn laid off as many as 2,100 off-role employees a few months ago.

Over the past few months, Ola has shut down various verticals in a bid to streamline its operations, including the used cars marketplace Ola Cars, the quick commerce vertical Ola Dash and its car-leasing service to drivers on Ola.

September 16 | Inc42 Exclusive: Clear Lays Off Around 200 Employees Citing Restructuring

SaaS startup Clear (formerly Cleartax) laid off 190-200 employees or about 20% of its total workforce. The startup cited restructuring to extend the runway as a reason for conducting layoffs across teams. According to Inc42 sources, the number of employees laid off could get higher.

The layoffs come after Clear made two acquisitions this year, compliance application CimplyFive and supply chain financing application Xpedize. The startup’s last funding round saw it raise $75 Mn in October 2021.

Clear reported a loss after tax of INR 118 Cr in FY21, 24% higher from INR 95 Cr in FY20. The startup reported an increase in both total income and total expenses during the said fiscal year.

September 7 | Inc42 Exclusive: Rupeek Lays Off 50 More Employees, Takes Total Count To 230

After laying off 180 employees exactly three months ago, fintech startup Rupeek laid off another 50 employees. The number let go amounted to around 5% of Rupeek’s workforce, said a spokesperson. The latest layoffs take the total number to 230, or around 20% of the startup’s original workforce.

Incidentally, these pink slips were issued just a day after Inc42 exclusively reported that Rupeek is in talks with investors to raise $16 Mn. So far, the fintech startup has raised $134 Mn, with its latest funding round back in January 2022.

Rupeek reported a loss of INR 156 Cr in FY21, down 68% from INR 487 Cr in FY20. At the same time, its total revenue grew to INR 88.5 Cr from INR 31.9 Cr in FY20.

September 1 | Inc42 Exclusive: Healthtech Unicorn Innovaccer Lays Off 120 Employees Amid ‘Adverse Economic Conditions’

Healthtech unicorn Innovaccer laid off 120 employees citing ‘adverse economic conditions’, with most of the employees being from the tech team. Many team managers have also been laid off, resulting in multiple projects shutting down.

According to Inc42 sources, Innovaccer offered a three-month salary as a severance package to the impacted employees. Innovaccer cofounder and CEO Abhinav Shashank confirmed the layoffs to Inc42.

The layoffs come nine months after Innovaccer doubled its valuation to $3.3 Bn after raising $150 Mn. In all, the healthtech unicorn has raised $375 Mn over its lifetime.

August 31 | Inc42 Exclusive: Microblogging Site Koo Lays Off Over 5% Workforce

Koo, the microblogging site being touted as India’s answer to Twitter, laid off 5% workforce. Most of the employees that were laid off were from the operations and backend teams.

The social media startup last raised funds in February 2022, when a dozen investors pumped $10 Mn into the startup. In all, Koo has raised $44.5 Mn so far.

August 25 | Meesho Shuts Down Meesho Superstore Operations In 90% Cities, Lays Off 300+ Employees

Ecommerce unicorn Meesho shut down the majority of its Superstore business, according to Inc42 sources. This has resulted in around 300 people being laid off as Meesho rolled back Superstore to only two cities, after expanding to six states in a short amount of time.

Sources told Inc42 that Meesho offered two months of salary as a severance package to the employees. It has also absorbed some of the on-roll employees in its core business. According to Inc42 sources, low revenue and high cash burn prompted the ecommerce unicorn to roll back its e-grocery service.

The layoffs come after Meesho raised a whopping $570 Mn in 2021 alone, having raised $1.1 Bn since it was founded in 2015.

August 5 | Edtech LEAD Lays Off Around 100 People After Performance Appraisal

Edtech unicorn LEAD has laid off around 100 employees as part of a performance appraisal process. The employees that were laid off belonged to multiple departments at the edtech unicorn.

A LEAD spokesperson said that performance appraisals happen each year and cited the layoffs as part of the same process. While media reports seemed to suggest a number of around 100, LEAD stated that the number is less than 100, without sharing the exact number of employees let go.

The layoffs come almost eight months after LEAD became a unicorn after raising $100 Mn in a funding round.

August 2 | Vedantu Takes Its Layoff Tally To Over 724 Employees; Conducts Third Layoff Citing Restructuring

Edtech startup Vedantu laid off a combined 724 employees across three layoffs, giving internal restructuring as the primary reason. Incidentally, Vedantu got the unicorn tag last year after raising $100 Mn in funding. 

The edtech’s first layoff came on May 5, when Inc42 exclusively reported that the edtech startup laid off 200 employees. The edtech startup said that it will be hiring around 1,000 people in the coming months. However, Vedantu conducted another layoff on May 17, this time firing 424 employees.

The third layoff came on August 2; Inc42 exclusively reported that Vendantu laid off more than 100 of its employees citing restructuring. The edtech asked the employees to put in their papers between July 4 and July 9 this year.

July 20 | Inc42 Exclusive: BlueStacks Lays Off 60 Indian Employees Citing Restructuring

Android emulator platform BlueStacks laid off 60 of its Indian employees as part of a restructuring exercise within the company. The layoffs impacted employees in various departments in BlueStacks’ Delhi office.

Hue Harguindeguy, CHRO, BlueStacks confirmed the developments to Inc42, stating that owing to macroeconomic changes, the startup had to realign. Harguindeguy added that the startup is helping the employees that were let go find new jobs.

BlueStacks has offered a one-month salary as severance pay to the laid-off employees which also includes medical benefits, per Inc42 sources.

July 12 | Event Tech Startup Hubilo Lays Off 12% Employees Citing Restructuring

Event tech startup Hubilo laid off 12% of its workforce, or around 45-50 employees after it stated that it will shift its focus to live and hybrid events. The Bengaluru and San Francisco-based has laid off employees across several departments.

A Hubilo spokesperson told Inc42 that the layoffs are a strategy to boost business. “On July 7th, Hubilo let go of approximately 12% of its workforce to pursue a strategy that will allow it to lay the foundation for the future of virtual, live, and hybrid events. We greatly value the contributions of all our team members,” the spokesperson said. Hubilo claimed that it has offered compensation packages and benefits, including stock options, bonuses, laptop retention, and job placement assistance to laid-off employees.

The layoffs come nine months after the startup had raised $125 Mn in a funding round.

July 12 | Inc42 Exclusive: Fresh Fruit & Vegetable Delivery Startup Fraazo Lays Off Over 150 Employees

Mumbai-based fresh fruit and vegetable delivery startup Fraazo has laid off more than 150 employees amid a cash crunch, winding down operations in Delhi NCR entirely and shutting down 50 dark stores across the country in the process. The layoffs took place across operations, tech, product, procurement, HR store managers, and planning and growth teams, among others, to cut expenses amidst a fund crunch.

Inc42 sources also noted that the number would be much higher if we include off-role employees such as delivery drivers. The employees that will leave the startup will receive a month’s salary as a severance package, mostly based on notice periods of the said employees.

The layoffs come nine months after the startup raised $50 Mn in a Series B funding round. Fraazo is shutting down more dark stores in Bengaluru and Hyderabad, which will result in more layoffs, particularly for the off-role employees.

June 30 | Inc42 Exclusive: Edtech Startup Crejo.Fun Shuts Down, Leaving 170 Employees Without A Job

Bengaluru-based edtech startup Crejo.Fun became the second edtech startup to shut down in June alone after Udayy, after failing to raise funding and schools reopening. The company claims to have refunded all of the customers, while it works to sell the IP to return some capital to the investors.

The company had raised $3 Mn in pre-seed funding last year from Matrix Partners India and Flipkart cofounder Binny Bansal-backed venture capital firm 021 Capital. However, it had been more than 14 months since then and Crejo.Fun was under pressure to raise fresh funding. The company’s 170-strong workforce will receive salary for July and the company claims that almost 90% of the same have been placed elsewhere. 

Cofounder Vikas Bansal confirmed the development with Inc42, saying in a written statement that even though the company grew well even with schools reopening, it has decided to shut down operations. “However we were running out of funds and while we were trying to raise capital for the last couple of months, but given the fundraising environment, we were unable to raise funds,” Bansal added.

June 29 | Inc42 Exclusive: EV Mobility Startup Oye Rickshaw Lays Off 40 Employees

Gurugram-based EV mobility startup Oye Rickshaw laid off 40 employees amid increasing losses and declining business, becoming the first in its industry to do so. Employees from tech, sales, marketing and several on-ground executives have been laid off by the startup citing adverse market conditions.

Mohit Sharma, cofounder and CEO of Oye Rickshaw, in a statement, said, “As we head towards a market downturn, we have had to make some difficult decisions to ensure the company continues to stay stable and achieve our mission of redefining India’s EV ecosystem.” Sharma said that when market improves in the future, the startup would look to get some of the laid-off employees back on board.

After having raised INR 24 Cr in a debt round last year, Inc42 was also informed that Oye Rickshaw is raising another INR 40 Cr in debt for day-to-day operations and to buy more batteries for its battery-swapping business.

June 29 | BYJU’S-owned Toppr Lays Off 350+ Citing Restructuring

In another layoff at a BYJU’s-owned edtech company, Toppr has laid off around 350 employees citing company restructuring. Most of the impacted employees were subject matter experts, content developers, managers and heads of departments for various subjects, among others, according to Inc42 sources.

According to an email sent to laid-off employees accessed by Inc42, the company said that it conducted a restructuring and that left multiple roles redundant. Toppr will provide severance payment equivalent to the notice period of the laid-off employees, along with a package including 15 days’ salary for each year completed and prorata performance bonus (if applicable) till June 30.

A BYJU’s spokesperson told Inc42 that it has absorbed 80% of Toppr’s workforce, after having bought the edtech startup for $150 Mn last year. In FY21, Toppr incurred a loss of INR 125.9 Cr. It generated INR 52 Cr in revenue, of which INR 50.6 Cr came from operations. Its expense stood at INR 178 Cr during the same time.

June 28 | Nova Benefits Lays Off 70 Employees Citing Restructuring, Takes Total Layoffs To 80

Bengaluru-based employees wellness platform Nova Benefits has laid off 70 employees as a result of restructuring. Earlier this month, the startup had laid off 10 employees, and the current layoffs take the total employees impacted to 80, or about 40% of its total workforce. The employees were laid off from sales, accounts, marketing and creative teams, among others.

“We owe everyone at Nova a challenging, fast-paced growth path. However, in the face of our redefined business strategy, we cannot provide this to 30% of our teammates,” a mass mail accessed by Inc42 read. The startup also cited cost-cutting as a reason to lay people off and conduct a business restructuring.

The layoffs come four months after it raised an undisclosed amount from Naval Ravikant-backed AngelList Early-Stage Quant Fund. In September, last year, the startup had raised $10 Mn in its Series A which Inc42 had exclusively reported. The round back then was led by Susquehanna International Group (SIG) and Bessemer Venture Partners.

June 28 | Inc42 Exclusive: BYJU’s-owned WhiteHat Jr Lays Off 300 Citing Cost Cutting

After forcing around 1,000 employees to resign as it called them to work from office, BYJU’s-owned WhiteHat Jr has laid off around 300 employees to cut costs. The sales, marketing and operations teams were the affected teams, with the first two being the worst affected.

According to Inc42 sources, the management has cited business restructuring as the reason behind the layoffs. Another source informed Inc42 that the WhiteHat Jr is in process of firing more people, and the number of employees impacted could double to reach 600 by the end of it. The company is said to have run out of operating capital, and is set to be completely absorbed by BYJU’s, a person said on condition of anonymity.

WhiteHat Jr has been posting staggering losses. In FY21, the edtech startup recorded INR 1,690.4 Cr in losses. During the same fiscal, it spent INR 2,175.2 Cr to earn INR 483.9 Cr.

June 27 | Inc42 Exclusive: Ecommerce Platform Udaan Lays Off 180 Citing Cost Cutting

B2B ecommerce platform Udaan became the eighth ecommerce startup to lay employees off in 2022, laying off 180 employees citing cost-cutting. While the layoffs do not amount to a significant percentage of its employees, Inc42 sources said that there are more layoffs to come. The number of employees affected can reach as high as 600, sources said.

Udaan has conducted the layoffs mere months after it raised $250 Mn in a round from big-name investors such as Microsoft, M&G Prudential, Kaiser Permanente, Nomura, TOR and others. In a statement given to Inc42, Udaan said that it will support outgoing employees. Udaan has said that it will provide medical insurance, a compensation package and outplacement assistance.

Udaan generated INR 5,919 Cr in revenues at an expense of INR 8,742 Cr in FY21. The startup narrowed its loss to INR 2,482.3 Cr in FY21 from INR 2,518.7 Cr in FY20. According to an internal mail sent a week before the layoff, the CEO Vaibhav Gupta had said that Udaan was en route to hit positive unit economics by the end of the June quarter. However, the startup still cited unit economics as a reason to lay people off.

June 20 | Inc42 Exclusive: Sequoia Surge-backed Aqgromalin Lays Off 80 After Investors Back Out

Chennai-based Animal husbandry and aquaculture startup Aqgromalin laid off 80 full-time employees from its corporate offices as a funding round did not materialise. The layoffs account for 30% of the startup’s total workforce and have impacted marketing, sales and support, among other teams.

The funding round was supposed to be led by a Korean fund, which pulled out on the day of signing the deal. The layoffs came almost five months after Aqgromalin raised $5.25 Mn in a pre-Series A round from the likes of Sequoia India’s Surge, Omnivore Partners and Zephyr Peacock India.

The layoffs have also likely prompted a pivot in the startup’s business, as Inc42 sources told that Aqgromalin might look to move away from animal husbandry and focus only on its aquaculture business. The Chennai-based startup is also in talks for a potential merger, with Licious coming up as a potential candidate.

June 18 | Social Commerce Startup CityMall Lays Off 191 Employees Citing Restructuring

Gurugram-based social commerce startup CityMall has laid off 191 employees, both on-roll and off-roll, across multiple positions citing restructuring. The move comes three months after the startup had raised $75 Mn in its Series C round of funding.

The startup has shuttered its operations in Noida and is likely to do the same at the warehouse in Jaipur, according to Inc42 sources. The startup has also closed two dark stores for one-day delivery in Rohtak and Gurugram.

CityMall recorded a loss of INR 15.18 Cr in FY21, having spent INR 28.9 Cr to make INR 15.18 Cr. A CityMall spokesperson, confirming the development, told Inc42 that the startup will provide outgoing employees with outplacement assistance to find jobs at other places.

June 17 | Inc42 Exclusive: Unacademy Lays Off 150 Employees, Takes Total Layoffs To 1,150

It has been a difficult few months to be an edtech employee, and this is far more evident at Unacademy than anywhere else.

The edtech unicorn has conducted four separate layoffs citing cost-cutting, performance reviews, restructuring and whatnot, as it pivots to offline and perhaps more interestingly, into SaaS with Cohesive, all in a bid to achieve profitability.

In late March, Inc42 first reported that in a cost-cutting exercise, the edtech startup had laid off more than 125 consultants from its PrepLadder team. PrepLadder, which was acquired by Unacademy in July 2020 for $50 Mn, gives students material for competitive exams such as IIT/JEE, NEET and so on.

Days later, Unacademy laid off more than 200 teachers in a cost restructuring exercise. Inc42 exclusively reported that the edtech unicorn fired the educators based on their poor performance. In early April, the startup laid teachers off again, this time firing 600 teachers. The layoffs, according to a company spokesperson, were based on several assessments to determine the performance.

The latest layoff has seen Unacademy lay off 150 more employees, mostly from its sales and operations verticals. According to Inc42 sources, the impacted employees are from Unacademy Group’s core business, Unacademy, and PrepLadder.

June 16 | Inc42 Exclusive: IPO-Bound PharmEasy Lays Off 40 Employees From Subsidiary Docon Technologies 

PharmEasy’s parent company, API Holdings has laid off 40 employees from its subsidiary Docon Technologies, an EMR or electronic medical record solutions provider. Docon has seen layoffs mostly across the sales background, such as business development managers, cluster heads and area managers.

Docon has been taken apart and incorporated into PharmEasy by API Holdings, forming PharmEasy One. According to Inc42 sources, many of the employees had resigned following the restructuring, and the remaining 40 employees were the ones that were laid off from the Docon team.

Docon Technologies made a loss of INR 29.7 Cr in FY21 against a total income of INR 2.25 Cr. Currently, it has stopped all on-ground operations and is working virtually.

June 14 | Inc42 Exclusive: Breathe Well-being Lays Off 50 To Cut Costs

Gurugram-based healthtech startup Breathe Well-being laid off around 50 employees or around 30% of its total workforce over the last few weeks in a bid to cut costs and extend its runway. The sales, operations, tech, and talent acquisitions, among others, are the teams that were impacted by the layoffs.

Per Inc42 sources, the startup had been aggressively hiring until April, looking to raise fresh funding. However, in failing to do so, it has not only laid off existing employees but also rescinded offer letters from employees that were supposed to join soon.

As per FY21, the startup had incurred a total loss of INR 2.27 Cr, while generating sales worth INR 39.2 Lakh, registering expenses of INR 2.66 Cr. The company had last raised $5.5 Mn in a funding round last August.

June 10 | Inc42 Exclusive: Logistics SaaS Startup FarEye Lays Off 250 Employees Citing Restructuring

New Delhi-based logistics SaaS startup FarEye has laid off 250 employees this week, impacting employees across offices in India, North America and Europe. FarEye has laid off across its product & engineering, professional services, talent acquisition, quality analysts, sales and developers teams, among others.

According to founder and CEO Kushal Nahata, the layoffs have happened because of a shift in focus of the startup and internal restructuring. He said that the laid-off employees will receive “rightful benefits and entitlements”, though employees that talked with Inc42 blame extensive hiring for the layoffs.

Notably, the layoffs come slightly over a year after FarEye raised $100 Mn in a Series E round. The startup has raised $150 Mn so far. FarEye recorded losses of INR 62 Cr on a standalone basis in FY21, having incurred an expenditure of INR 142.2 Cr during the same period.

June 9 | Inc42 Exclusive: Edtech Startup Yellow Class Lays Off 19 Employees

Elevation Capital-backed edtech startup Yellow Class has let go of around 19 employees in recent weeks. The startup had informed its team about the layoffs on May 19, as per Inc42 sources.

While Inc42 sources hinted that a lack of funds is the reason behind the layoffs, founder Anshul Garg denied any such claims. He agreed on the layoff count but said the layoffs were part of restructuring as Yellow Class has chosen to focus deeply on fewer initiatives. The startup had a total workforce ranging from 120 to 130 on its payroll.

The layoffs have come almost 10 months after Yellow Class raised $6 Mn in its Series A round led by Elevation Capital along with a clutch of angel investors including Vidit Aatrey, and Dhruv Agarwala.

June 7 | Sequoia-Backed Gold Loans Startup Rupeek Lays Off 200 People To Cut Costs

The Bengaluru-based gold loans provider Rupeek laid off 200 people in a bid to cut costs. The laid-off workforce represents 10-15% of Rupeek’s total workforce, a company spokesman said, adding that the startup will support the outgoing employees without sharing any details.

Rupeek’s layoffs came five months after it had raised $34 Mn in January 2022, valuing the startup at over $600 Mn. So far, the fintech soonicorn has raised $134 Mn in venture capital funding.

Incidentally, the startup reported a net loss of INR 156.5 Cr in FY21, having incurred a total expense of INR 245 Cr. The startup reported a net income of INR 88.5 Cr in FY21.

June 4 | SoftBank-Backed Edtech Startup Eruditus Lays Off 40 Employees After Resizing Expansion Plans

Mumbai-based edtech unicorn Eruditus laid off 40 employees from its workforce. The company has rolled back its expansion plans to around 100-150 hirings this year, eliminating the need for a large talent acquisition team.

“So that team (talent acquisition), unfortunately, has been affected. And yes, we have downsized that team because we don’t need the same set of people,” Eruditus cofounder and CEO Ashwin Damera said.

According to Damera, Eruditus scaled down its expansion plans to achieve profitability in the near term, saying that the startup’s India business is already profitable.

June 2 | Inc42 Exclusive: Info Edge-Backed Yojak Fires 140 Employees, Shuts Domestic Operations

Gurugram-based construction-focused ecommerce startup Yojak laid off 140 employees in April and May. Yojak is also shutting down its domestic operations and will now focus on Yojak Exports to export construction materials and equipment.

The startup, backed by Info Edge, ran out of funds to operate its domestic operations, sources claimed. Out of the 140 employees it has asked to leave, 60 were full-time, while 80 were contractual hirings. Yojak founder Rachit Garg further told Inc42 that the startup has laid off many third-party workers, without sharing any numbers for the same.

Yojak’s employee benefits expenses increased by 40-50% since January 2022 owing to its aggressive hiring, which saw its runway shrink significantly.

June 1 | Edtech Startup Udayy Shuts Down, Leaves 100 Employees Jobless

Gurugram-based edtech startup Udayy said that it will be shutting down operations, three years after it was founded by Saumya Yadav in 2019. This has left 100 people that it employed without a job.

At the time of the shutdown, the edtech claimed to have users across 45 cities, with 400 classes a day being operated. Udayy had last raised $2.5 Mn in January last year in a seed funding round, backed by the likes of Alpha Wave Global and InfoEdge Ventures. In all, the early stage startup had raised $13.5 Mn of institutional capital.

Udayy’s founder and CEO told Inc42 that it has given severances to its employees and contractural teachers. After winding up operations, Udayy will also return $8.5 Mn to some investors.

May 31 | Inc42 Exclusive: Indiabulls’ Social Commerce Venture Yaari Lays off 150 Employees

The social commerce platform Yaari, a venture of Indiabulls, asked almost 150 employees to submit their resignations in the last week of April. The impacted employees, from the supply support, customer support, business development and marketing teams, account for 60% of its total workforce.

Yaari looked to compete with the likes of Meesho and Trell, but it was underfunded by several orders of magnitude as compared to the two unicorns. According to several employees Inc42 talked with, the company was not doing well. Even so, the employees were reassured of their jobs.

In the aftermath of the layoffs, Yaari’s tech team has been absorbed by Dhani.com, another Indiabulls-backed ecommerce venture. Yaari itself will be merged with Dhani.com as well.

May 30 | MPL Lays Off 100 Employees, Exits Indonesia, Shuts Down Streaming

Mobile Premier League (MPL), the fantasy gaming unicorn, laid off 100 people from multiple teams. The layoff has impacted about 10% of its total workforce as the unicorn exits Indonesia and shuts down its streaming service.

In an email to employees, MPL cofounders Sai Srinivas and Shubh Malhotra said, “It is time to make the difficult decision to redeploy our resources in other parts of our business to ensure our long-term health and success as a company.”

The unicorn had last raised $150 Mn in funding in September 2021, becoming one of India’s 100 unicorns at that point. The layoffs come eight months after the said fundraise.

May 27 | Inc42 Exclusive: FrontRow Lays Off 145 Employees To Cut Costs

Extracurricular edtech startup FrontRow laid off 145 employees across sales, quality control and HR teams. The layoff, impacting almost a third of the startup’s total employees, has been done to cut costs and increase the startup’s runway. According to Inc42 sources, the sales team alone saw 100 people fired.

FrontRow founder Ishaan Preet Singh told Inc42 that the decision was taken to ensure that the startup has over 24 months of runway. “This included letting go of ~30% of our team, primarily in sales, to make sure that we come out of this market stronger,” he added.

FrontRow laid off employees eight months after it raised $14 Mn in a Series A funding round, having raised $17 Mn in funding overall, having the backing of the likes of Deepika Padukone, and several other angel investors.

May 24 | Invact Metaversity Crashes; Lays Off 66% Of Workforce

Invact Metaversity, founded by ex-Twitter India head Manish Maheshwari, started as a promising edtech startup, offering a 16-week MBA alternative for around INR 2 Lakh. The first course was supposed to start on May 12.

However, even before anything like that, the Metaversity is all but closed up, having laid off 20 out of the 30 employees that were working from the Bengaluru office. Maheshwari had announced his plans in December 2021 and the startup had raised more than $5 Mn from some of India’s biggest angel investors.

Even so, Metaversity’s fall from grace has come as little surprise, as the founders struggled to find the right product and the right approach. The startup lacked a shared vision among the leadership.

Last evening, Metaversity said that Maheshwari has stepped down from his position as CEO.

May 21 | Inc42 Exclusive: MFine Lays Off 600 Employees Prompting Protests

In what proved to be another example of apathy of a startup, healthtech startup MFine fired almost 75% of its workforce citing financial difficulties.

However, the writing was already on the wall for MFine. The company had reported a loss after tax worth INR 102.7 Cr in FY21, as it spent INR 116 Cr to make INR 12.9 Cr. According to an ex-employee, MFine had already been firing people in small batches since October 2021.

Entire teams were laid off in the process, which triggered protests against the startup as 100 former employees gathered outside MFine’s Bengaluru office. The protestors demanded the rollout of the full May salary along with an early release of their full & final payment.

However, not only did MFine not let Inc42 enter the office, it did not allow female ex-employees, which included a pregnant woman, to use the restroom.

May 19 | Inc42 Exclusive: Cars24 Lays Off 600 Citing Automation, Cost Cutting

Used car unicorn Cars24 also joined the list of startups that have laid employees off. Mostly laying off across lower divisions, Cars24 cited automating operations and cutting costs as the two reasons for laying off 7% of its total workforce.

On the other hand, the unicorn has raised $950 Mn across its lifetime. These layoffs come five months after it raised $400 Mn at a valuation of $3.3 Bn. Speaking on the layoffs, a Cars24 spokesperson told Inc42, “This is business as usual – performance-linked exits that happen every year.”

The startup is looking for an IPO over the next 18-24 months, joining the list of Indian startups that are waiting for the storm to pass to go for a public listing.

May 17 | Vedantu Lays Off 624 Employees In 15 Days Citing Restructuring

Edtech startup Vedantu laid off a combined 624 employees across two layoffs within a span of 15 days, citing cost restructuring as the primary reason.

First, Inc42 exclusively reported that the edtech startup laid off 200 employees. The edtech startup said that it will be hiring around 1,000 people in the coming months. However, two weeks in, Vedantu conducted another layoff, this time firing 424 employees.

The startup has conducted the layoffs after it achieved the unicorn tag last year after raising $100 Mn in funding. A blog post by CEO Vamsi Krishna showed that the startup will extend health benefits for laid-off employees and their families till August 5, 2022.

May 10 | Inc42 Exclusive: WhiteHat Jr Conducts ‘Soft’ Layoffs As 1,000 Employees Resign

In a strange and probably the first case of its kind, Indian startup WhiteHat Jr asked its remote employees to either join offices or hand in their resignations. Inc42 had exclusively reported the resignations of 800 employees, however, after publishing the story several employees reached out, claiming the number to be more than 1,000.

According to ex-employees, this was a layoff in disguise. Interestingly, Inc42 learnt that if an employee is based out of Gurugram, they were not allowed to join WhiteHat Jr’s Gurugram’s office, but the Bengaluru office for a similar job role.

The edtech startup’s soft layoffs have triggered the debate between working remotely and working from the office as more and more companies are asking their employees to join. However, WhiteHat Jr gave the employees no choice at all.

April 21 | Ola Restructures Quick Commerce Business; Lays Off 2,100 Dark Store Workers

After going bullish on quick commerce twice before, Bhavish Aggarwal-led Ola’s quick commerce arm Ola Dash went for restructuring its entire business, which resulted in the unicorn laying off around 2,100 dark store workers. Ola ended the contracts of these workers who were hired to man its 200 dark stores.

In terms of its dark stores, Ola has reportedly scaled down half of them and may even shut a few of them down. The unicorn had run into regulator challenges with bringing in its $500 Mn term loan from foreign lenders and that had prompted the scale back.

However, doing a 180 recently, Ola has announced that it will go for quick commerce again, scaling down its food delivery operations this time around. This means that laying off those 2,100 people meant nothing, as the company tries hard to pivot away from its core business of cab aggregation.

April 11 | Layoffs At Meesho: 150 Employees Fired Citing Restructuring

The ecommerce unicorn Meesho laid off 150 employees, saying that it is restructuring Meesho Superstore which has impacted the said number of employees.

Meesho said, “As we look to boost efficiencies in the light of the integration, a small number of full-time roles and certain third-party positions on six-month contracts at Meesho Superstore were reassessed to remove redundancies with the core business.”

The layoffs happened less than seven months after the unicorn raised $570 Mn in funding. The ecommerce and social commerce unicorn tried its hands at grocery delivery with a pilot project in Karnataka less than nine months ago. It had plans to expand to Tier 2+ cities, but it has had to scale back following limited success.

March 26 | Furlenco Lays Off 180 Employees To Cut Costs

Furniture startup Furlenco laid off around 180 employees to cut costs and achieve profitability ahead of a public offering, according to several employees Inc42 spoke to.

Around 95% of the employees let go were in customer-facing roles which include customer support and other similar roles. The startup claims to have extended medical coverage for the impacted employees, which constitute almost a third of the startup’s total workforce.

The layoffs come as the company had raised $165 Mn in funding last year alone, including a $24 Mn funding round in February 2022 itself.

March 14 | Trell Lays Off Half Of Its Workforce To Extend Runway, Cut Costs

Bengaluru-based social commerce platform Trell laid off 300 employees after the company’s founders were alleged of financial irregularities and the company saw its $100 Mn funding round fall through.

Amid the boardroom tussle, which saw the company’s investors order an investigation against the founders and the founders hitting back, the company’s employees suffered.

The layoffs were cited to be an exercise to cut costs and extend its runway as Trell looked to survive. The company incurred a loss of 78.4 Cr in FY21. This is an almost 550% increase from INR 12.07 Cr that it had incurred in FY20.

March 10 | Blinkit Lays Off Nearly 1,600 Employees After Splurging INR 600 Cr

Quick commerce startup Blinkit reportedly laid off employees across major cities including Mumbai, Hyderabad and Kolkata. The layoffs impacted close to 5% of Blinkit’s overall workforce, which amounts to around 1,600 people, including riders, pickers and store managers.

The layoffs came on the heels of Zomato investing $150 Mn in the cash-strapped company, which had also picked up a loan of $10 Mn from Innoven Capital.

Blinkit has had to cut back after reportedly splurging INR 600 Cr on expanding its business last year between November and February. The deep discounting tactics backfired and the startup cut costs and corners to reduce its cash burn by firing employees.

February 23 | OkCredit Lays Off 35% Of Workforce To Change Business Model

Bengaluru-based bookkeeping startup OkCredit laid off 40 employees or around 35% of its total workforce. Most of these layoffs were from the backend, tech and engineering teams.

The Tiger Global and Lightening-backed startup said that it is focusing on its fintech initiatives and strengthening its growth channels, which has resulted in the startup laying off the said employees. OkCredit said that the laid off employees were being supported by outplacement services and extended medical insurance.

In FY21, the startup spent INR 114.6 Cr, to earn a mere INR 3.79 Lakh in sales revenue, forming another possible reason for the layoffs.

February 21 | Lido Lays Off 150 Employees To Cut Costs

Edtech startup Lido’s founder Sahil Sheth, during a virtual town hall, told the company employees that they were in a financial crunch. Following this, the company asked 150+ employees to submit their resignation as it looked to raise funds or possible acquisition of Lido.

The company assured these employees that they would be paid the pending salaries for January 2022 and the 1st week of February 2022 within ’30 to 90 days’, but to date, their salaries are pending, which has prompted them to take the fight to social media.

Since its launch in 2019, Lido Learning has raised close to $24 Mn in funding. The layoff had come only six months after it raised $10 Mn from Ronnie Screwvala’s Unilazer Ventures.

This is a running article. We will add as new information comes in.

If you would like to report a layoff, pay cut etc. at a startup, write to us at editor@inc42.com.

Last updated on August 14, 2023, 20:00 IST.

The post Indian Startup Layoff Tracker: 34,780+ Employees Laid Off By 120+ Startups Since 2022 appeared first on Inc42 Media.