As companies in India continue to lay off employees to navigate the ‘funding winter,’ with over 60,000 expected to lose their employment in 2022 alone, the country is gearing up to welcome 200 unicorns in the next four years.
As hundreds more face layoffs, led by edtech and e-commerce platforms, the ‘ASK Private Wealth Hurun India Future Unicorn Index 2022’ list shows that almost 122 businesses from 25 cities are on the route to becoming unicorns.
The irony is that while funding still flows in the Indian startup ecosystem, the ratio of laying off employees is growing exponentially, with lay-off news dominating the headlines.
Nearly 12,000 startup employees have been shown the door to date, let by companies like Ola, Blinkit, BYJU’s (White Hat Jr, Toppr), Unacademy, Vedantu, Cars24, Mobile Premier League (MPL), Lido Learning, Mfine, Trell, farEye, Furlanco and more.
According to industry insiders, at least 50,000 more startup employees will be laid off this year alone in the name of “restructuring and cost management,” while select businesses continue to receive millions in funding.
Several unicorns, including Ola, Unacademy, Vedantu, Cars24, and Mobile Premier League, have also laid off employees (MPL).
In the Hurun report, Anas Rahman Junaid, MD, and Chief Researcher, Hurun India, acknowledged that “there are some concerns in the global economy that can impact the valuations and capital raising ability of Indian startups”.
“Moreover, some Indian start-ups are also going for layoffs and cost-cutting measures leading to thoughts of a slowdown in the ecosystem. We believe that there could be a blip in the growth story in the short run, but the long-term potential of the Indian start-up ecosystem remains excellent and resilient,” said Junaid.
On Wednesday, online learning giant BYJU’s cut more than 600 jobs asking over 300 employees at its Toppr learning platform and another 300 at coding platform WhiteHat Jr to go.
The layoffs come as the edtech sector has been hammered by the global macroeconomic conditions and the reopening of schools, colleges, and physical tuition centers.