Food-tech start-up Swiggy is laying off 380 workers as a part of a restructuring exercise, according to news reports. In a letter to employees by Co-founder and CEO Sriharsha Majety, he said that the company will also shut down its meat marketplace vertical.
"We’re implementing a very difficult decision to reduce the size of our team as a part of a restructuring exercise. In this process, we will be bidding goodbye to 380 talented Swiggsters. This has been an extremely difficult decision taken after exploring all available options and I’m extremely sorry to all of you for having to go through with this," Swiggy founder and CEO Sriharsha Majety said in a mail according to Business Today.
The company will shut down its meat marketplace as it takes a harder look at some of its verticals, Majety said. He wrote, "While the team has done exceptionally well with solid inputs, we haven’t hit product market fit here despite our iterations. From a customer perspective, we will still continue to offer meat delivery through Instamart. We will continue to stay invested in all other new verticals."
The mail from the CEO was communicated to employees at a town hall on January 20, according to the report. This decision will affect around 3 per cent of the company’s 6,000 staff.
Swiggy will be providing three-month severance pay to the laid-off employees along with career transition support and six-month health cover.
For the impacted employees, the yearly vesting cliff for employee stock options has also been waived. “We will be extending vesting to the nearest quarter from the last working date. They will also be eligible to participate in the ESOP liquidity programme slated for July 2023,” the company said.
In November, another food delivery start-up Zomato laid off 100 employees to cut costs. Swiggy’s layoff is in a string of layoffs that have shaken the start-up ecosystem in India.