Bizongo lays off 15% employees shortly after announcing $50 Mn fundraise

In a surprising move, e-commerce-focused packaging company Bizongo has laid off employees shortly after announcing a $50 million funding round.

Confirming the development to Entrackr, a Bizongo spokesperson said, "We are driving sharper focus towards key business goals and in lieu of this, we have reallocated our people. Parting ways with people is never easy and these are difficult decisions. We are fully committed to extend support to affected employees with the best of our abilities."

According to ET, which reported the development first, Bizongo fired 15% of its workforce or 50 employees.

Officially, this is the second layoff for the company after a gap of three years. In June 2020, it fired around 160 staff. However, sources close to the company indicated that there were layoffs in early 2023. The number of impacted employees could not be verified.

The company did not comment on the previous layoffs.

As per startup data intelligence platform TheKredible, Bizongo has raised $260 million to date. The firm saw its valuation jump from $600 million to $980 million during the latest round. The company could have become the second unicorn of 2023 from Indian after Zepto. However, it chose to stay away from the spotlight.

Eight year old Bizongo offers digital vendor management, supply chain automation & supply chain financing as key services to its enterprise customers. The platform serves enterprise customers across fashion & lifestyle, pharmaceuticals, consumer discretionary, and consumer staples. As per the company, more than 50% of the raw materials bought by SME vendors on its platform are steel and aluminum.

Bizongo registered Rs 1,705 crore in operating revenue in FY22 with a loss of Rs 100 crore. While the company is yet to file its audited financial report for FY23, the firm’s founder said that its losses remained the same in the last fiscal year. It aims to post a profit before tax in the fiscal year ending March 2024 of FY24.

The Indian startup ecosystem has seen more than 15,000 layoffs in the first 9 months. As per data compiled by TheKredible, half of the layoffs happened in Q3 or the last quarter only.