It’s been a tough few months for Indian startups, but the bigger ones that been thought to be largely doing well. In a sign that even vaunted, highly funded startups are struggling, InMobi has become the latest company to let go of employees. It has fired 100 people from its headcount of around 1000 in Bangalore.
There had been rumblings early this year that InMobi was struggling to meet revenue targets and was finding it hard to survive the cut-throat competition posed by rivals Google and Facebook. Its latest mobile advertising tool, Miip, which the company had bet big on, has met with a muted response, and s Quora thread had said that after the departure of several senior people, the internal teams was disillusioned.
Factor Daily had reported that InMobi’s revenues for the year ended March 2016 were about $320-$325 million, but its losses in 2014 and 2015 were 45 million and $40 million respectively. The company had taken on a debt of $60 million in August 2015, and that left it with little runway to run operations without cutting costs.
InMobi is one of the poster boys of India’s startup scene, having successfully competed with global giants like Google and Facebook in the online advertising space. With its layoffs, it joins companies like Zomato, Foodpanda and Housing who’ve had to let go of employees to remain viable.