Months After Raising $805 Mn, DailyHunt Parent Lays Off 150 Employees

VerSe Innovation, the parent company of news aggregator platform DailyHunt and short-video platform Josh, laid off around 150 employees, or almost 5% of its total workforce of 3,000, last week, sources told Inc42. 

Besides, the startup also decided to undertake an 11% pay cut for employees with annual salaries of more than INR 10 Lakh, the sources added.

“Given the current economic climate, like other businesses, we’ve evaluated our strategic priorities. Considering the long-term viability of the business and our people, we have taken steps to implement our regular bi-annual performance management cycle & made performance & business considerations to streamline our costs and our teams. This has impacted 5% of our 3,000-strong workforce,” a VerSe spokesperson told Inc42.

“In addition, to ensure long term profitable growth, we have exercised fiscal and employee prudence & implemented a 11% salary cut for all individuals with salaries above 10 Lac per annum,” the spokesperson added. 

As per the sources, a majority of the employees impacted from the layoffs were from its video platform Josh.

The layoffs came seven months after the Bengaluru-based unicorn bagged $805 Mn in a funding round at a valuation of $5 Bn. The startup’s Series J funding round was led by Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments), Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board (Ontario Teachers’), Luxor Capital, Sumeru Ventures, among others.

VerSe has raised over $1.7 Bn across multiple funding rounds till date. The startup incurred a massive loss of INR 2,563 Cr in the financial year ending March 31, 2022. It was a 3X jump from the loss of INR 808 Cr it reported in FY21. 

The startup’s expenses rose 135% to INR 3,714 Cr in FY22 from INR 1,580 Cr in FY21, while revenue from operations jumped only 45% to INR 965 Cr in FY22. Revenue from operations stood at INR 666 Cr in FY21. It is pertinent to note that the startup’s business promotion expenses jumped 2X to INR 2,693 Cr in FY22 from INR 1,281 Cr in FY21. 

With the layoffs, VerSe has joined the growing list of Indian startups to have fired employees this year amidst a funding winter. As per Inc42’s layoff tracker, Indian startups, including VerSe, have laid off 16,038 employees in 2022 so far to cut costs and increase their runway. 

The development was first reported by Money Control.