 "BNPL startup Simpl undertakes second round of layoffs in less than a month")
Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) startup Simpl on Thursday handed over pink slips to around 30 employees less than a month after it fired 160 people, according to three people aware of the development. This round, like the last one, has impacted people across departments.
"We were told about the layoffs in a meeting," one of the persons who was impacted by the exercise told Business Standard. "Some seniors have also been asked to leave the company."
Another person of the three quoted above said that some senior executives have resigned, including Ashwini Ravindranath, vice president, partner success, Vatsal Jain, vice president, enterprise business, and Ramkumar Narayanan, vice president, product and operations.
The person said that the company has also promised a severance package. It would include a fixed salary for two months and 15 days' salary for every year of service.
"They have massively overhired people across departments. I am sure some more people will be fired soon," they said.
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Earlier on May 8, the company had laid off around 160 employees, saying that it had laid out a "comprehensive growth plan" while having a "razor-sharp focus on profitability."
On Thursday, in response to Business Standard's query, Simpl said that the latest layoffs were in "continuation of our organisation-wide efforts to become fiscally prudent" and to achieve profitability by mid-2025.
"As an organisation, we routinely review our businesses to improve efficiencies and become more agile and leaner as an organisation to drive consistent growth," said Ashish Kulshrestha, Head of Communications, Simpl.
"Over the last few years, we have scaled our business exponentially and to drive this growth in a sustainable manner, we have been undertaking a series of measures to improve operational efficiencies."
Business Standard had earlier reported a person saying that some people were also fired by Simpl during March and April after their performance reviews. This would make this round the third round of layoffs, but no official confirmation has been received from the startup.
In 2022-23, Simpl had reported a 147 per cent increase in its net loss of Rs 356.6 crore. The company is yet to file its FY24 financials.
Since it was founded in 2015, the platform has raised over $80 million. It claims to have 26,000 online merchants and 42 million registered users.