Online learning platform, which has been struggling off late on the business side of things, is reflecting that even more in its latest attempts to cut costs. The unicorn edtech, which has been rumoured to be attempting a merger with Byju’s owned Aakash, has laid off another few hundred employees in its bid to cut costs and get profit numbers going.
According to a letter by Unacademy co-founder and CEO Gaurav Munjal, the edtech firm will reduce the size of its current team by 12%.
It’s latest round of layoffs will eliminate around 380 employees, and comes on the heels of it laying off 350 employees (or 10% of its workforce) in November 2022. This is the fourth such round of layoffs for the company in the last 12 months.
Munjal announced the decision in an internal memo, apologizing for the decision and adding that Unacademy had “taken every step in the right direction to make our core business profitable, yet it’s not enough. We have to go further, we have to go deeper.”
“I never thought I would need to send out another message like this, but here I am,” Munjal wrote. This round of layoffs is set to be the fourth round of layoffs announced by the edtech startup – it comes after Unacademy had fired 600-800 employees from it’s sales and marketing team last April, layoffs at its core business and the Relevel unit, and the layoffs in November.
The firm said that the decision to cut down on costs and achieve profitability was a necessary one, at a time when the funding winter continues to persist and adverse macroeconomic conditions in the market make it difficult for startups to secure fresh infusions of capital. India’s fancied edtech unicorns have been hit particularly hard, as instances of consumer complaints, business malpractices and a significant downtime in new user sign ups have halted their unprecdented COVID growth.
The impacted employees will be provided with a severance pay that is the equivalent of the notice period, along with the pay of an additional month. Unacademy will also provide support such as accelerated vesting of a year, placement and career support, and medical insurance coverage until September 30.
“Unfortunately, this has led me to take another difficult decision. We will be reducing the size of our team by 12% to ensure that we can meet the goals we are chasing in the current realities we face. I did not anticipate I would have to do this again, and I’m very sorry,” Munjal wrote in the memo.
He added that the current situation was vastly different from the scenario two years ago, which witnessed “unprecedented growth because of the accelerated adoption of online learning. Today, running a profitable business is key. We have to adapt to these changes, and build and operate in a much leaner manner so we can truly create value for our users and shareholders.”
