Led by edtech and e-commerce platforms, thousands more are set to close themselves, the ‘ASK Private Wealth Hurun India Future Unicorn Index 2022’ list highlights that around 122 startups from 25 cities are on their way to becoming unicorns . Valuation of $1 billion and above).
Ironically, funding is still on in the Indian startup ecosystem, but the proportion of employees being laid off is increasing rapidly, with news of layoffs making headlines.
Nearly 12,000 startup employees have been shown door to date, companies like Chalo HailstoneEyelid, byju(White Hat Junior, Topper), Unacademy, Vedantu, Cars24, Mobile Premier League (MPL), Lido Learning, MFine, Trail, FarEye, Furlanco and more.
Industry experts say at least 50,000 more startups are likely to lay off employees this year alone in the name of “restructuring and cost management”, while some startups continue to receive funds worth lakhs.
Even several unicorns have laid off employees like Ola, Unacademy, Vedantu, Cars24 and Mobile Premier League (MPL).
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Anas Rahmani in Hurun Report JunaidMD and lead researcher, Hurun India acknowledged that “there are some concerns in the global economy that could impact the valuation and ability of Indian startups to raise capital”.
“Also, some Indian start-ups are also going for layoffs and cost-cutting measures leading to slowdown in the ecosystem. We believe that a blip in the growth story in the short term. Maybe, but long term, Junaid said, the potential of the Indian start-up ecosystem remains excellent and resilient.
On Wednesday, online learning giant BYJU cut more than 600 jobs — laying off more than 300 employees on its Topper learning platform and another 300 to move to coding platform WhiteHat Jr.
The layoffs come as the edtech sector has been hit hard by global macroeconomic conditions and the reopening of schools, colleges and physical learning centres.