Zilingo lays off 5% of global workforce amid restructuring

Singapore-based fashion marketplace Zilingo said it has laid off less than 5% of its 900-strong global workforce as part of its “company-wide restructuring measures.”

Zilingo co-founder and CEO Ankiti Bose / Photo credit: Zilingo

A spokesperson for the company told Tech in Asia that Zilingo’s current strategic direction is to focus on its core business plans in Asia and emerging markets, after recently shifting to a business-to-business model, in addition to growing its platform.

With this approach, the company “had to make several tough decisions,” which included letting go of part of its team, as some functions have become redundant, the spokesperson added. According to Zilingo, the restructuring measures were not taken in response to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, as planning had been going on for several months before the layoffs were announced.

Zilingo started as a Bangkok-based online marketplace in 2015. It has since expanded to offer a suite of solutions for fashion merchants, including procurement and inventory management, payments processing, as well as business financing.

Early last year, it raised US$226 million from Singaporean state-linked funds Temasek and EDBI, as well as existing backers Sequoia Capital, Burda Principal Investments, and Sofina. Bloomberg reported at the time that the series D raise pushed the company’s valuation to about US$970 million.

The company then announced in October 2019 that it planned to invest US$100 million to build out its fashion supply chain business in the US, after starting its operations in the country earlier that summer. Zilingo said the move was part of its accelerated growth plans in new markets such as Australia, Europe, and the Middle East.