MUMBAI (Reuters) – Indian online education firm Unacademy will cut 10% of its workforce due to “harsh economic conditions”, the company told employees in a letter on Monday, its second round of layoffs this year.
Softbank-backed Unacademy has tried to curb spending on marketing and control operational costs but it was not enough, founder and CEO Gaurav Munjal said in the letter, which was seen by Reuters.
The Bengaluru-based company employs around 3,500 people, so 350 employees would be affected in this round of layoffs, a source in the company told Reuters on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media about the matter.
“Funding has significantly slowed down and a large portion of our core business has moved offline,” Munjal said in the letter.
A spokesperson for Unacademy did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters.
Unacademy, which was set up in 2015 and has raised funding from Softbank among other investors, cut more than 600 jobs in April this year, local media reported at the time.
“We made a commitment of no layoffs in the organisation but the market challenges have forced us to reevaluate our decisions,” Munjal said in the letter.
(Reporting by Shilpa Jamkhandikar; Editing by Susan Fenton)
