And just when we thought that the lay-off spree is over, Quikr has reportedly jumped into the game. According to multiple media reports, and an inside source confirming us the same, over 150 employees of CommonFloor have been asked to leave Quikr.
An Inc42 report states, that the employees got a notice regarding axing from the HR department. The people who haven been asked to leave, include 15 members from the design team, 5-10 employees from the engineering team, 5 in the product team and 20-30 from the service team.
It is being reported that the company had sent an automated email stating “to look out for career opportunities outside the company” at 4:58 PM on Friday. This step was taken to avoid any type of backlash.
Many people have already resigned on their own after Quikr acquired CommonFloor for around $200 million in an all-stock deal in January, hinting towards possible unease within the company over acquisition.
At the time of acquisition, Quikr said that its real estate vertical – QuikrHomes will benefit from CommonFloor’s structured data and domain expertise. Also, CommonFloor will get access to Quikr’s 30 million consumers. But since Quikr’s interest lies in data, it seems obvious for the company to lay off employees, considering it will now have its own team working on the acquired data.
That possibility though, is again strange. Acoording to one of the terms in the acquisition deal, both the companies – QuikrHomes and CommonFloor were expected to operate as an independent entity.
Reports also suggest, that among all this fiasco, CommonFloor’s Bangalore office in Diamond District will also be shut down within a month’s time. At the time of acquisition, CommonFloor’s Bangalore office had 650 employees and the company had around 1000 employees across India.
In an emailed response, Quikr spokesperson said to Inc42:
Bangalore will now serve as the main hub for all business functions of both Quikr and CommonFloor. As part of the overall integration exercise, we have been analysing all our assets and believe it is best to consolidate our physical as well as people assets based on our business needs. Together, we are highly committed to our consumers, people, partners and growing business in India.
As for the lay-off trail, it gripped Indian unicorns with Zomato had laying-off more than 10% of its staff. Other notable lay-offs include that of TinyOwl (laid-off 112 people), which did the axing in order to lower its burn rate. Along with them, other startups, including Housing and HelpChat had also fired employees citing various reasons.
