Exclusive: Milkbasket To See Exit Of 130 Employees Amid Restructuring

At least 130 employees of MilkBasket are set to lose their jobs due to a restructuring exercise being undertaken at the startup owned by Reliance Retail, sources told Inc42.

Employees from teams like tech, product, category, procurement, marketing, among others, will be impacted by the exercise, the sources said. 

The startup began informing the impacted employees about the development over the last two months and asked them to look for other opportunities, the sources added. 

Milkbasket cited role redundancy as the reason behind the decision, sources told us. The impacted employees will be paid remuneration as per their notice periods.

The restructuring exercise is in line with Milkbasket’s ongoing efforts to integrate with JioMart over the coming months to improve efficiency. Inc42 has also learnt that the startup is working on a new business model and is likely to undergo rebranding. 

It must be noted that Reliance Retail Venture Ltd, the retail arm of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), acquired a 96.49% stake in Aaidea Solutions Private Limited, the parent entity of Milkbasket, in 2021. 

Some of the impacted employees affected by the restructuring exercise are likely to be absorbed in other verticals of Reliance Retail, the sources said.

An email sent to RIL did not elicit any response till the time of publishing this story. The article will be updated on receiving a response from the company.

The latest development comes close on the heels of Milkbasket’s top executives, including CEO, CFO, and COO, exiting the company. While three cofounders of Milkbasket exited last year, according to Entrackr, the startup’s fourth founder Yatish Talvadia, COO Abhinav Imandi, and CFO Gaurav Srivastava, left the company recently. 

Founded in 2015 by Anant Goel, Ashish Goel, Anurag Jain and Talvadia, Milkbasket caters to household grocery needs like fruits and vegetables, dairy, bakery, among others, by delivering them at home. Before its acquisition by Reliance Retail, Milkbasket had raised $38.5 Mn in multiple funding rounds from investors such as Kalaari Capital, Innoven Capital, Unilever Ventures, among others. 

At the time of acquisition in 2021, the startup has operations in Delhi NCR, Hyderabad and Bengaluru. Since then, it has expanded its operations to over 30 cities, including Navi Mumbai, Ahmedabad, and Jaipur.

Milkbasket’s revenue from operations dropped 19% to INR 421.18 Cr in FY22 from INR 522.62 Cr in FY21. However, net loss soared over 99% to INR 65.9 Cr from INR 33.17 Cr in FY21. 

In Q1 FY24, Reliance Retail’s net profit surged 18.8% to INR 2,448 Cr from INR 2,061 Cr in the year-ago quarter. Interestingly, Milkbasket didn’t find any mention in RIL’s Q1 presentation or post-earnings call with analysts.