ShareChat lays off 200 employees to streamline costs

In a second round of layoffs this year, Google-backed ShareChat has fired about 15% of its workforce as the vernacular social media platform looks to cut costs to turn profitable in the next year-and-a-half. The layoff likely affected around 200 employees across verticals. The platform has a total headcount of over 1,300.

“ShareChat today undertook a strategic restructuring as part of its annual planning for 2024. The decision reflects the commitment to streamline cost base and achieve profitability in the next 4-6 quarters. As a result, it has moved to a flatter organisation structure and prioritised product initiatives that resulted in a reduction in team size by roughly 15%,” ShareChat said in a statement.

Earlier this year, in January, parent company MohallaTech had fired about 20% of its workforce, around 500 employees, across ShareChat and Moj, its short-video app. In December 2022, it had fired another 100 employees after it had shut down its fantasy gaming app Jeet 11.The latest round of startup layoffs comes at the end of a year which has so far seen more than 15,000 layoffs from 108 companies. This is higher than 59 startups sacking 14,224 employees in 2022, which included mass layoffs at Byju’s, Ola and Unacademy, according to data from layoffs.fyi.

The funding winter has compelled many startups to focus on sustainable growth and profitability to justify their high valuations, leading to headcount reduction as a cost-saving measure. Some of these startups had raised capital at a high valuation during the funding boom of 2021 and also hired at a large scale, encouraged by growth prospects.ShareChat’s parent had raised more than $1.1 billion during the funding boom of 2021, as per Tracxn data. Last year, it had raised $300 million in fresh funding from Times Group, Google and Temasek Holdings at a $5-billion valuation.

However, recent media reports suggest that the company might see a substantial cut in its valuation as it is looking to raise another $50 million from its existing investors. Meanwhile, concerns remain as ShareChat posted a 38% jump in losses to Rs 4,000 crore in FY23. Its revenue grew 62% y-o-y to Rs 540 crore.