Meesho lays off over 150 employees from grocery biz

Social commerce platform Meesho has laid off around 150 people primarily from its grocery division Superstore (Farmiso), according to three people aware of the development. This comes at a time when the SoftBank and Facebook-backed company is in the process to integrate its grocery app Superstore with its core app.

This would be the second such instance when Messho has decided to fire employees in large numbers. Two years ago, it laid off more than 200 employees of its over 700-strong workforce during the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic. 

Entrackr had exclusively reported the development then.

“Messho has fired about 150-200 employees from Superstore divisions,” said one of the sources requesting anonymity. According to sources, the layoffs are aimed to bring down monthly cashburn and extend the runway. 

“Meesho is in the market for over a month to raise up to $1 billion but the company is finding it hard to convince existing and new investors,” said another source who also wished not to be named.

While one of the sources emphasisied that over 200 staff have been laid off, a Meesho spokesperson has maintained that 150 employees were impacted in the exercise.

Soon after Entrackr's queries on Monday evening, Meesho also published a blog without giving any details on number of impacted employees.

With this, Meesho joins several growth-stage startups in India that recently fired a significant number of employees.  Last week, edtech unicorn Unacademy fired over 600 employees in a cost-cutting drive. 

In March, furniture rental startup Furlenco also fired 180 employees. Edtech company Lido, social commerce platform Trell and bookkeeping startup OkCredit also shrunk a notable chunk of their employee base this year. Entrackr had exclusively reported these developments.