Exclusive: Turtlemint cuts pay of its 750 employees by up to 30%

The chaos unleashed by the coronavirus pandemic has now started to hurt startups, who are now taking measures including slashing jobs and cutting salaries to stay afloat through this difficult period.

Joining the league of such startups is the online insurance marketplace Turtlemint, which has decided to cut salaries of all employees for three months.

"The situation has come upon us very suddenly and we have to adapt and respond to it fast. We felt that this was the best course of action to take in the given circumstances among other options," said the company's co-founder and CEO Anand Parbhudesai in an email to its employees which Entrackr has seen.

The pay cuts will be in the range of 10-30%. Turtlemint, which spends around 75% of its monthly costs on salaries, further claimed to have kept a certain threshold of a pay cut to avoid impacting its employees at the lower rung.

"The salary cut will be for three months: March April and May. We will review the situation at the end of this period and roll back once things improve," the company added. Turtlemint has over 750 employees.

Founded by ex-Quikr executives Dhirendra Mahyavanshi and Anand Prabhudesai, Turtlemint offers insurance products in the categories of vehicle, life and health. Last year in January, Sequoia India had led $25 million worth Series B round. It directly competes with Policybazaar and Coverfox.

The developments come amid several such measures being taken by startups across segments. Online insurance firm Acko has laid off about 50 out of its about 500 employees and its top executives have taken voluntary pay cuts in the range of 50-70%.

Entrackr had exclusively reported this the development on Wednesday.

Other startups including bike-sharing startup Bounce, cloud communication platform Exotel, Makemytrip, Cleartrip and Ixigo have also announced salary cuts. Whereas as platforms such as Drivezy, US-based travel platform Fareportal and Udaan have had to trim their team size to survive the slowdown.