Event Tech Startup Hubilo Lays Off 12% Workforce As Physical Events Resume

Bengaluru and San Francisco-based event tech startup Hubilo laid off around 12% of its workforce from across departments last week, sources said.

The startup has around 374 employees, as per its Linkedin page, which means it laid off around 45 employees.

A Hubilo spokesperson confirmed the development with Inc42 and said that the layoffs were part of its strategy to boost business. 

“On July 7th, Hubilo let go of approximately 12% of its workforce to pursue a strategy that will allow it to lay the foundation for the future of virtual, live, and hybrid events. We greatly value the contributions of all our team members,” the spokesperson said.

The startup claimed that it is offering compensation packages and benefits, accelerated and vested stock options, mid-year bonuses, PTO/bank of leaves payout, retention of laptops, and job placement assistance to the laid off employees.

The development comes almost nine months after Hubilo raised $125 Mn in its Series B round. Digital event organising startups such as Hubilo saw a big increase in their customer base during the pandemic as the world shifted to virtual mode. The prolonged lockdowns further helped these event management startups.

However, the increasing vaccination coverage, receding impact of the pandemic and resumption of normal lives has hit such startups hard. This is also one of the reasons for the sharp drop in share price of video conferencing platform Zoom, which became very popular during the initial phase of the pandemic and lockdowns.

The restarting of physical events has forced companies and startups enabling digital events to pivot their business model to organise physical and hybrid events.

Hubilo, which was founded in 2015 by Vaibhav Jain, Mayank Agarwal, and John Peter, initially started as a virtual networking platform for attendees. However, people preferred physical events back then as internet penetration was also low in the country. The startup, therefore, started developing tools and executing and managing mid to large-size events for enterprises. However, with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, it made a re-entry into the virtual events landscape. 

Hubilo has raised around $150 Mn in multiple rounds till date and is backed by investors like Alkeon Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Balderton Capital, among others. Apart from India, Hubilo is also operational in the US, the UK, Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), and APAC regions.

As per Inc42’s layoff tracker, Hubilo has become the 34th Indian startup to layoff employees in 2022. More than 11,100 startup employees have lost their jobs in 2022 so far.