Swiggy set to lay off over 350 employees as it gears up for IPO

Foodtech and quick commerce decacorn Swiggy is laying off 5-6% of its overall workforce as the company is looking to turn profitable by the second half of this year, two sources aware of the details told Entrackr.

“Anywhere between 350-400 employees are set to be laid off,” said one of the sources requesting anonymity. “The staff will be given standard severance packages along with other benefits.”

Swiggy did not respond to Entrackr’s queries.

This will be the largest layoff this year so far, and second one for the Bengaluru-based foodtech company in the past 12 months. It also let go of a similar number of staff in January 2023, and shut down its meat marketplace around the same time citing cost cutting efforts.

Sources outline that the layoffs are also connected to its potential public listing plans, expected to occur sometime in the next fiscal year (FY25).

Besides layoffs, Swiggy also saw top-level exits including Sidharth Satpathy, Dale Vaz, Karthik Gurumurthy, Ashish Lingamneni, Nishad Kenkre, and Anuj Rathi in the current fiscal year (FY24).

Swiggy’s investor Invesco marked up the company’s valuation to $8.3 billion which is the second-time increase in fair value in the past three months. The Bengaluru-based firm reached the peak value of $10.7 billion and entered the decacorn club after a $700 million round in January 2022.

The layoffs-spree across the growth and late stage startups has gathered momentum as these companies are gearing up for prolonged funding winter and prioritizing profitability over growth. In the past few months, around a dozen companies including Simplilearn, Third Wave Coffee, Udaan, ShareChat and Bolt.Earth reduced workforce to rationalize costs.

Public company Paytm also fired around 1,000 employees last month while Walmart-backed Flipkart is reportedly laying off 1,000-1,500 employees. Most recently, Cult.fit and InMobi also fired several hundred employees.

Update at 6:45 pm: The headline and story have been updated to reflect that Swiggy will lay off 350-400 employees.