Shopclues Is Firing 200 Employees; Rivigo Firing 70-80 Employees, Rolling Back Offer Letters

Two of the biggest VC-backed startups from India have announced major lay-off news, and this is certainly not good for the startup ecosystem.

Ecommerce biggie Shopclues is reportedly firing 200 employees, whereas transportation and logistics startup Rivigo is asked 70 to 80 employees to leave, and even rolling back offer letters which were given to freshers from IITs and IIMs.

200 Employees Will Be Fired In Shopclues

Shopclues, which is one of the oldest ecommerce startups in India, has fired 200 employees. This is a big number, considering that they had 500 employees, and this means, almost 50%o of the staff have been fired.

The firings were done since Shopclues was looking for a buyer, and they failed to find one.

A company spokesperson said, “We have always been an employee-first company and have ensured that impacted employees, if any, are out placed proactively,”

Losses are mounting, and they reported Rs 208 crore loss for the financial year ending March 2018.

As of now, Shopclues has received funding of $250 million, but funds are drying up. Despite the fact that Shopclues is a Unicorn, their financial position is very slippery right now.

In fact, last year, Shopclues had plans to raising an IPO, but that seems a distant possibility now. Will Shopclues be able to survive a niche, which is now being dominated by the likes of Flipkart and Amazon, along with Paytm?

Rivigo Firing Employees, Rolling Back Offer Letters

Meanwhile another VC-funded firm: Rivigo, has opted for the layoff route, as they are under pressure from investors to bring down expenses.

As per reports, they have fired 70-80 employees, and also rolled back offer letters which had been extended to promising candidates from IIMs and IITs.

As per Gazal Kalra, the Marketing and Logistics Human at Rivigo, one of the reasons for this layoffs is that, several of the products which were launched have attained maturity, and there is no need for techies now.

She said, “For developing each of these businesses there was a build (tech) team and an operations team in place, but with the maturity of the initial three businesses, the role of build team reduced and operations team enhanced.”

The company has also consolidated two businesses: reight marketplace and full truckload, which have resulted in redundant employees, and they had to be fired.

Rivigo has raised $245 million as of now and works with 10,000 truck pilots, 580 business partners, and 4,900 employees as of now.

We will keep you updated, as more details come in..