Mumbai-based Pocket Aces has let go of 50 of its 200 full-time employees, or 25% of them, in order to reduce costs and turn a profit in the upcoming year.
The company’s representative told YourStory that “as we continue to march towards our vision of becoming culture creators that positively influence people via our content and products, we had to take some difficult but necessary steps to keep our operating model agile and resilient.”
The Economic Times broke the news of the development first. The online entertainment provider claimed to be modernising its business strategy by relying more on independent contractors to produce long-form content. Employees in the company’s production, post-production, and content departments will be laid off.
Aditi Shrivastava, Co-Founder and CEO of Pocket Aces. In response to this development, she said,” it has been a tough decision to part with some of our talented team members and friends. However, we must continue to innovate our operating models, as this is the only way to ensure that we remain agile with changing audience preferences.”
Pocket Aces was started by a trio
She added, ” We deeply care about the people leaving us and will provide them with financial support, ongoing health insurance coverage, and help with their transition. We will also continue to work with many of them as freelancers and assist others with outplacements.” The Economic Times broke the news of the development first. The online entertainment provider claimed to be modernizing its business strategy by relying more on independent contractors to produce long-form content. Employees in the company’s production, post-production, and content departments will be laid off.
In 2013, the trio abandoned their well-paying Wall Street positions and pooled their media, technology, and finance expertise to found Pocket Aces. Married couple Suresh and Shrivastava, along with Pandita, profited from India’s smartphone boom to establish the largest socially dispersed content network in the nation, which consists of five brands: FilterCopy, Dice Media, Gobble, Jambo, and Nutshell.
The millennial-focused business is developing 12 new series in light of the pandemic’s increased need for material. The $17 crore Pocket Aces raised in January will primarily be used for working capital finance and content investments.
Three people with no experience in entrepreneurship and middle-class professional families have accomplished all of this. Aditi and Anirudh, childhood friends, were raised in Kuwait, while Ashwin was raised in Dubai. Their parents wanted the three of them to move further West and pursue the American Dream after leaving India in quest of a better life.
All three did, if only for a moment. They were Wall Street workers who resided in New York. While Anirudh worked for companies like Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, and Ishtitmar World Capital, Aditi spent more than five years in investment banking and private equity at Citigroup.
