Zilingo cuts 12% of jobs – here’s what happened behind the scenes

Zilingo, the Singapore-headquartered business-to-business fashion ecommerce company with close to US$1 billion in valuation, has cut more jobs in Singapore, Thailand, India, Vietnam, and Indonesia as it deals with the fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic, several sources close to the situation tell Tech in Asia.

Founders Ankiti Bose and Dhruv Kapoor said in a blog post that 12% of the company’s total workforce has been affected.

Zilingo co-founders Ankiti Bose and Dhruv Kapoor / Photo credit: Zilingo

This follows the first round of layoffs in April, which affected about 5% of its then-900-strong workforce, though sources indicate that the retrenchments went even deeper.

The company is also instituting pay cuts and remote working measures as well as shifting some Singapore-based roles abroad. This may mean letting go of or subletting its current spaces. Its entire office at Singapore’s Duo Tower, for instance, was advertised on the property site CommercialGuru, a person involved in the sale tells Tech in Asia.

Zilingo, however, said on its blog post that its “current Singapore office” will be fully functional by August. The listing has since been taken down, but it was up for a few days at least.

Meanwhile, Zilingo’s chief financial officer James Perry – a well-regarded investment banker who worked at Citibank for 22 years before joining the startup – has returned his shares to the company for a token sum, public filings reveal. He had been with Zilingo for just over a year.

However, a spokesperson states that Perry is still with the company. The filing “reflects an internal restructure of shares to be in compliance with applicable regulations,” she said.

Effects of Covid-19

In the company blog post, Bose and Kapoor mention that for most fashion-focused small and medium-sized enterprises across Asia – Zilingo’s core market – recovery is expected to be slow and will likely take another three to six months. They also say that over 25% of fashion MSMEs in South and Southeast Asia have shut down.

In addition, one employee tells Tech in Asia that Covid-19 has disrupted the company’s fintech plans, as many SMEs are expected to default.

Zilingo’s role has been to facilitate loans to SMEs in partnership with a financial institution. Through brokerage fees, this business was supposed to be a profit-generating machine, an ex-employee says.

But the entire online lending space has been hit by the pandemic, with layoffs at major lenders such as Akulaku, Oriente, and Funding Societies.

A screenshot of Zilingo’s Singapore office rental listing

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