Unacademy Lays Off 350 Employees In Its Third Round Of Job Cuts In A Year: Report

In an internal email sent to the employees, Unacademy Co-founder and CEO Gaurav Munjal said the restructuring exercise would affect about 10 per cent of employees across the group

Unacademy, the SoftBank-backed edtech unicorn, has sacked 10 per cent of its workforce or about 350 employees in third such round of layoffs within a year, according to several news reports. In an internal email sent to the employees, Unacademy Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Gaurav Munjal said the restructuring exercise would affect about 10 per cent of employees across the group.

Munjal in an email said, “I want to apologise to everyone sincerely since we made a commitment of no layoffs in the organization but the market challenges have forced us to reevaluate our decisions. Funding has significantly slowed down and a large portion of our core business has moved offline. We are no strangers to the harsh economic conditions that everyone is witnessing these days. These are very difficult times for the technology ecosystem. And things are getting worse with each passing day.”

He said the parting team members will receive the severance pay equivalent of their notice period and an additional two months. They would be granted an accelerated 1 year vesting period, medical Insurance coverage for an additional one year and dedicated placement and career support.

Bengaluru-based Unacademy is conducting these job cuts at a time when the firm recently logged a net loss of Rs 2,693 crore for FY21-22, according to data accessed by business intelligence platform, Tofler.

This is an 83 per cent increase from the last financial year. The company’s total expenses for the fiscal were reported as Rs 3,411 crore. The firm reported its revenues for the financial year 2021-22 as Rs 718 crore, a 78 per cent jump since the last financial year.

In April, the company laid off about 1,000 employees in a move that was seen as a focus on profitability as well as consolidation and cost-cutting drive in the edtech space amid the pandemic.

In May, Munjal had said that Unacademy may see a funding dry spell for at least next 12-18 months and even last till 24 months and will cut costs to weather the lean period.

In July, with an eye on profitability and the aim to go public in two years, Unacademy founders took a salary cut; complimentary meals and snacks across offices were done away with; and “certain businesses” were shut down. Also, there was no business travel for anyone, including top executives.

Unacademy’s rival and India’s most valuable edtech firm, Byju’s, is laying off nearly 2,500 employees. Another edtech unicorn Vedantu has laid off more than 700 employees in 2022.