Exclusive: Gold loan startup Rupeek lays off 200 employees

Online platform for gold loans Rupeek has laid off close to 200 employees, according to three people aware of the development. With this, the company has joined a clutch of growth and late-stage companies which had collectively let go of several thousand employees in the past couple of months.

According to sources, the impacted employees are from all verticals including sales, marketing and operations teams. Rupeek has also confirmed the layoffs to Entrackr but declined to share the number of employees who have lost their jobs.

“With deep regret, we have taken the difficult decision to part ways with 10-15% of the employees. The subdued macro economic environment has compelled us to re-calibrate our strategy, relook at our costs and make our organization structure leaner, so as to support our sustenance and growth…," said Rupeek’s spokesperson in a response to Entrackr's queries sent on Monday.

While the exact employee headcount before the layoff couldn’t be ascertained, the company has over 1,200 employees, per its LinkedIn profile.

The Binny Bansal-backed firm has raised close to $140 million to date and was valued at $634 million during the latest round. Its investors include Sequoia, Accel, Vostok Emerging Finance, Bertelsmann, GGV Capital and HighSage Ventures. In January, the Bengaluru-based company had raised $34 million led by Lightbox.

Rupeek’s chief executive officer Sumit Maniyar also sent an email to employees early Tuesday which mentioned that the external extraordinary situation forced it to take this decision of cutting its workforce. “Globally, all the emerging markets including India are facing an extraordinary situation that has been caused owing to rising inflation, a hike in US treasury rates, and the Russia-Ukraine war. The subdued macro economic environment has compelled us to re-calibrate our strategy, relook at our costs and make our organization structure leaner, so as to support our sustenance and growth,” mentioned the email.

Entrackr has reviewed the copy of the email.

Rupeek provides loans against gold as collateral with interest rates ranging from 5.88% to 21.48%. The six-year-old company claims that it has over five lakh customers in over 30 cities across India.

During the first wave of the pandemic, Rupeek had got rid of 600 contractual employees, according to a CNBC TV18 report.

For the fiscal year ending on March 31, 2021 or FY21, Rupeek’s revenue from operations jumped 3.1X to Rs 63 crore from Rs 20.6 crore in FY20. Due to the sharp reduction in costs, the company saw its annual losses reduce by 68% to Rs 156.4 crore in FY21 as compared to Rs 488 crore in the preceding fiscal year.

Rupeek directly competes with PayU-backed Indiagold and Binny Bansal-backed Oro while its indirect competition includes legacy NBFCs and banks. The company forayed into instant, MSME, business and Mudra loans. Tiger Global-backed Jar also emerged as one of the indirect competitors of Rupeek in recent times.