Hubilo Fires 35% Of Its Workforce In Second Round Of Layoffs Within 6 Months

Bengaluru and San Francisco-based event management startup Hubilo laid off 115 employees, or around 35% of its workforce, earlier this month in a restructuring exercise. The layoffs took place across teams.

A Hubilo spokesperson confirmed the development with Inc42. In a written statement, the startup said, “Hubilo has made the difficult decision to restructure the company amid global macroeconomic conditions. Approximately 35% of the company was laid off as a result. We have made our best effort to ensure that the impacted employees are supported with generous severance packages as well as outplacement services to give them a smooth transition. Looking forward, we have very clear goals and a sound strategy in place for 2023.”

This was the second layoff round at the startup within six months. In July last year, Hubilo sacked 45 employees, or around 12% of its workforce, across departments to boost its business.

Hubilo, founded in 2015 by Vaibhav Jain, Mayank Agarwal, and John Peter, started as a virtual networking platform for attendees. However, gauging the preference for physical events, it started developing tools and executing and managing mid to large-size events for enterprises.
It made a re-entry into the virtual events landscape with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic,.

The rise in virtual events amidst the pandemic-related restrictions helped Hubilo raise around $150 Mn in three funding rounds. It first raised a seed round at the end of 2020, followed by $23.5 Mn Series A funding from Balderton Capital, Lightspeed Ventures, among others. In late 2021, the startup raised $125 Mn in its Series B round led by Alkeon Capital.

However, the business of event management startups such as Hubilo took a hit late 2021 onwards as normalcy returned to daily life following increase in Covid vaccination coverage and decline in daily infections. Consequently, such startups have gone back to the drawing board and changed their business models to organise physical and hybrid events.

Hubilo globally competes with the likes of Airmeet, Floor, TouchCast, and Whova.

The funding winter and macroeconomic headwinds made 2022 the year of layoffs for the Indian startup ecosystem, and the trend has continued in 2023 as well. Startups like Ola, LEAD, Harappa Education, GoMechanic, and Skit.ai are among those whose layoffs have been reported in the new year. In total, Indian startups have laid off more than 20,000 employees since last year.