The funding winter of the last two years appears to be firmly in place in 2024 as well.
Swiggy is set to fire 400 employees in a bid to cut costs, ET reports. These job cuts will cull 6% of its workforce, and will impact employees in the company’s technology, corporate and call centre verticals. Swiggy has briefed senior leaders to conduct these layoffs gradually over the next few weeks.
“Senior executives have been given a list and need to identify executives to be laid off. The process has begun,” a source said. “This is linked to the planned IPO of Swiggy where it needs to present the best possible numbers,” they added.
Swiggy is the latest Indian tech unicorn which has laid off employees in 2024. It has been reported that Flipkart is in the process of laying off 1000 employees this year, which would amount to 7 percent of its workforce. Meanwhile InMobi, which had become India’s first ever unicorn in 2011, is laying off 125 employees, which amount for 5 percent of its workforce. Just yesterday, Cult.fit had laid off 150 employees in order to cut costs. Now Swiggy will be laying off 400 employees for similar reasons.
This isn’t the first time Swiggy is laying off large numbers of employees. Swiggy had laid off 1,100 employees when the coronavirus pandemic had first hit, and had fired 350 employees a few months later. Last January, it had laid off 380 employees.
But these latest layoffs come with some bright spots on the horizon. Swiggy’s chief rival Zomato has seen its stock climb 3x from the lows of last year, and is trading close to its all-time highs. This will have a knock-on effect on Swiggy’s valuation, and the company seems to want to capitalize on this period by listing on the stock markets itself. And by trimming some fat, it appears to be making sure its overall numbers look just that bit better before being apprised by public market investors around the country.