Tiger Global Backed Chargebee Fires 10% Workforce In 2nd Round Of Layoffs

Chennai-based SaaS unicorn Chargebee has recently laid off about 10% of its global workforce, affecting between 100 to 120 employees across multiple departments, according to sources who spoke to Inc42.

Chargebee CEO Krish Subramanian cited ‘market shifts’ as the primary reason behind the layoffs. 

In a blogpost, Subramanian said, “To position Chargebee for its next phase of efficient growth, and with the technology and market shifts underway across the industry, it is critical that we set up the organization to focus on fewer priorities, with a greater emphasis on our customers’ experience and our core products.”  

The company will provide severance packages in accordance with the relevant labor laws in each country, it claimed.

The latest layoffs come almost ten months following Chargebee’s initial workforce reduction amid economic challenges. In November of 2022, the startup let go of roughly 142 employees, or about 10% of its staff, due to unfavourable economic circumstances.

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 over 4,000 customers, including Okta, Freshworks and Calendly.

The startup had last raised $250 Mn in a funding round led by US-based hedge fund Tiger Global and Peak XV Partners (formerly known as Sequoia Capital India). The funding round, which valued the startup at $3.5 Bn, also saw participation from a slew of other investors like Insight Partners, Sapphire and Steadview Capital. To date, the startup has raised close to half a billion dollars in multiple rounds of funding.

Since the beginning of 2022, the funding landscape for Indian startups has been strained, in part due to the geopolitical tensions arising from the Russia-Ukraine conflict. This challenging macroeconomic environment has forced many Indian startups to transition from an aggressive growth model to a focus on profitability, resulting in the adoption of various cost-saving strategies, including staff layoffs.

According to the Inc42 layoff tracker, since the beginning of 2022, Indian startups have laid off over 28,000 employees.

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