SaaS Unicorn Chargebee Lays Off 10% Workforce

Chennai-based revenue management startup Chargebee has laid off 10% of its workforce, citing adverse macroeconomic conditions, joining a growing list of startups that have conducted layoffs in 2022.

The move impacted 142 people working at the SaaS unicorn. Krish Subramanian, Chargebee’s cofounder and CEO, confirmed the development in a LinkedIn post shared late on Wednesday (November 2).

“This difficult decision was driven by external market forces as well as our need to address the operational debt we have accumulated in the last few years. We have made every effort to offer severance, equity and job transition support to ease some of the stress caused by these changes,” Subramanian said in the post.

The development comes nine months after Chargebee raised $250 Mn in a funding round led by Tiger Global and Sequoia. The SaaS unicorn managed to double its valuation to $3.5 Bn in the said funding round. Chargebee so far has raised nearly $470 Mn across various funding rounds.

Subramanian’s message said the severance package Chargebee will offer to the impacted employees includes three months’ pay, three months of extended medical benefits and outplacement service. 

The SaaS unicorn is also allowing a time extension for employees with company shares allowing them to exercise their stock options.

In the LinkedIn post, the Chargebee CEO also shared screenshots of the message that he sent to the laid-off employees.

“At the start of Q2, macroeconomic factors began impacting public companies and the financing environment. As you know, we changed our hiring plan to align with priorities and started implementing stricter fiscal discipline to reorient the company towards long-term sustainability,” explained the CEO.

Subramanian said that the SaaS unicorn had been cutting costs across areas including tools, consulting and contractors. The decision also comes as a measure to reduce costs going forward.

Speaking on the future outlook, Subramanian said in the message, “Although we still face uncertain headwinds, I want to reinforce my belief in our long-term market opportunity.”

The CEO said that the global SaaS market is still forecasted to grow and the SaaS unicorn is well-capitalised to grow along with it.

“More importantly, every customer conversation only reinforces that the problems we’re solving remain acute and pervasive. The vision for our product remains strong and we will continue to rise to meet the multitude of market opportunities in the long term,” he added.

Founded in 2011 by Subramanian, Rajaraman Santhanam, Saravanan KP and Thiyagarajan T, Chargebee is a revenue management platform that allows SaaS businesses to automate revenue operations. The unicorn claims to have more than 4,000 customers including Okta, Freshworks and Calendly.

After the layoffs, Chargebee became the 44th Indian startup that has conducted layoffs and the 11th unicorn, according to Inc42’s ‘Indian Startup Layoff Tracker’. Per the tracker, these 44 Indian startups have laid off 15,316 employees so far in 2022.

---

Update | November 3, 2022, 12:00 PM

Chargebee has confirmed to Inc42 that it has laid off a total of 142 employees. The story has been updated to reflect the same.