Exclusive: Prosus-Backed Airmeet Lays Off 30% Workforce

Virtual events platform Airmeet has become the latest Indian startup to layoff employees amid the funding winter. The Bengaluru-headquartered startup fired about 30% of its 250-300 people workforce, or at least 75 employees, earlier this week, sources told Inc42.

The layoffs impacted multiple teams, including sales, marketing, tech, and operations. Besides India, employees working in the US, Europe, among others, were also impacted by the layoffs.

The sources said that the startup took the decision to layoff employees to increase its cash runway and improve operational efficiency amid a slowdown in the business.

In an internal mail, Lalit Mangal, cofounder and CEO of Airmeet, said the startup had to layoff employees as its ‘execution’ was not yielding the desired outcomes. Inc42 has accessed the mail sent by Mangal.

“…with drastically reduced marketing budgets everywhere and rapid commoditization of the virtual event category, our steadfast execution is not yielding the needed outcomes for retaining a healthy financial state,” Mangal said.

Highlighting that “AI-paradigm” will change everything about business processes and software, he said, “Airmeet has become a lean and nimble company again to build the new future of digital engagement for communities and companies.” 

The startup has offered two-months of salary as severance pay to the Indian employees and acceleration of vesting of all ESOPs options till June 30, 2023. It will also extend its health insurance coverage for these employees till August 18, 2023. 

It will offer severance pay to the impacted US employees as per the local regulations.

Mangal confirmed the layoffs with Inc42 but didn’t disclose the number of employees impacted.

The layoffs came more than a year after Airmeet raised $35 Mn in its Series B funding round from Prosus Ventures, Sistema Asia Fund, RingCentral Ventures, KDDI Open Innovation Fund, DG Daiwa Ventures and Nexxus Global. 

The funding round also saw participation from existing investors Sequoia Capital India and Accel India.

The startup mopped $12 Mn in its Series A round led by Sequoia Capital in September 2020. 

Founded in 2019 by Mangal, Vinay Kumar Jasti, and Manoj Kumar Singh, Airmeet is an online meeting and event hosting platform. It allows participants to also connect with other attendees for one-to-one and one-to-many online interactions.

Airmeet’s Indian entity, Airmeet Networks Pvt LTD, posted a 1.8X jump in net profit to INR 5 Cr in FY22 from INR 2.75 Cr in FY21. Revenue from operations increased over 1.9X to INR 75.8 Cr from INR 40 Cr in FY21. 

As per Inc42 layoff tracker, Indian startups have to date laid off around 27K employees since the beginning of 2022.