Business-to-business e-commerce firm Udaan has laid off 300-350 employees, or about 10 per cent of its total workforce of 3,000, as it targets profitability, according to news agency PTI. It reported that the layoff has taken place across department functions.
Few employees of Udaan said they were intimated about the layoff on Friday morning and told that the human resource department will reach out to them for final paperwork, according to the PTI report.
Udaan has also confirmed the development without sharing the number of employees hit by the decision, according to PTI.
Bengaluru-based Udaan, which is planning to launch its initial public offering (IPO) in the next 12-18 months, also sacked 180 employees in June this year.
“As we move forward in our journey towards making Udaan a profitable company, the efficiency enhancement drive and the evolution in business model has created some redundancies in the system, with some roles no longer required… As a responsible organisation, we are working towards providing all required support to the impacted employees,” said an Udaan spokesperson.
The spokesperson added that in the past few years, Udaan has made significant investments to build a tech-led solid and sustainable business, offer affordable and quality products, better services, and superb experience to its business partners.
“We believe in efficiency as a driver of profitable growth and will continue to refine our cost structures and models. In this direction, we have taken numerous steps, with enhanced digital capabilities, to achieve efficiency and scale, become more agile and remain competitive in the marketplace,” the spokesperson added.
The spokesperson further said the initiatives have not only helped udaan achieve positive unit economics but also reduced inefficiency in the system, with huge cost benefits, which is key to building a sustainable business.
“We will continue to invest to build udaan as a professionally run organisation with scale, capabilities and resilience that can leverage the huge opportunity that kirana commerce offers, while empowering the small businesses of Bharat,” the spokesperson said.
Recently, Udaan raised $120 million in convertible notes and debt from shareholders and bondholders, amid a funding winter for start-ups. The firm has raised a total funding of $1.6 billion from investors that include Microsoft, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Nomura.
Udaan has a network of over 3 million registered users and 25,000-30,000 sellers across 900 cities in the country covering more than 12,000 PIN codes. The platform has over 1.7 million retailers, chemists, kirana shops, HoReCa, farmers, etc. doing over 4.5 million transactions per month, making udaan a leader in the b2b eCommerce business.
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