Udaan lays off over 100 employees as part of restructuring exercise

New Delhi, Dec 18 (IANS) Homegrown B2B e-commerce platform Udaan, which raised $340 million last week, laid off more than 100 employees as part of a restructuring exercise.

A company spokesperson said that they have made significant progress in their journey towards building a profitable business and “continue to make relevant interventions to our already proven business model, while remaining customer centric and agile”.

“However, these interventions have also resulted in some redundancies in the system,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

The Bengaluru-based company restructured its business units in September to merge the essentials business (FMCG, staples, and pharma) and the discretionary business (general merchandise, lifestyle, and electronics).

“We remain committed to our goal of driving Kirana commerce and empowering small & medium businesses of Bharat by leveraging the power of e-commerce,” the company spokesperson added.

In 2022, Udaan had fired over 500 employees in two phases. Last week, the B2B e-commerce platform raised $340 million (a mix of equity and convertible notes) in a Series E round led by UK-based savings and investment firm M&G Prudential, and participated by existing investors Lightspeed Venture Partners and DST Global.

Udaan said that it aims to deploy fresh funds towards strengthening customer experience, market penetration, strategic vendor partnerships, and to reinforce long-term capabilities of supply-chain and credit.

The fresh funding “enables our continued journey of growth and profitability, positioning us well to be public-market ready in the next 12-18 months", said Vaibhav Gupta, Udaan co-founder and CEO.

Founded in 2016, Bengaluru-based Udaan has raised $1.8 Bn in funding to date.

In FY23, the unicorn saw its operating revenue nosedive by 43 per cent to Rs 5,609 crore from Rs 9,897.3 crore in FY22.