Indian B2B unicorn Udaan axes at least 300 employees

Udaan, an India-based B2B ecommerce platform, has fired 300 to 350 employees in a fresh round of layoffs, a source close to the development told Tech in Asia.

These layoffs are going to affect on-role employees across all verticals, the source added.

The company has also axed around 650 to 700 contract employees, according to an Economic Times report. The contracts with these staff members were not renewed by the company, said the source mentioned above.

Udaan co-founders (from left): Amod Malviya, Vaibhav Gupta, and Sujeet Kumar / Source: Udaan

The source said the layoffs were a step in the direction for the IPO-bound company to achieve “better unit economics”.

“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 Tech in Asia.

“As a responsible organization, we are working towards providing all requisite support to the impacted employees,” the company added.

The layoffs come shortly after the company raised US$120 million in convertible notes and debt from shareholders and bondholders last week.

The company posted US$1.3 billion in revenue and an operating loss of US$412 million for the financial year ended March 2022, according to VentureCap data.

This is the second round of layoffs at the unicorn, which had let go of nearly 200 staff in June.

Founded in 2016, Udaan has operations across categories including lifestyle, electronics, home and kitchen, staples, fruits and vegetables, fast-moving consumer goods, pharma, toys, and general merchandise. The company has a network of over 3 million registered users and 25,000 to 30,000 sellers across 900 cities in India.

See also: Udaan sustains $315m loss on top of $134m in revenue