Although the current economic slowdown has not impacted India at large, several Indian firms are still laying off employees. The latest to join the string is the community and security management startup MyGate. According to media reports, the company has laid off 30 per cent of its employees. Mid-management and junior-level employees were affected severely by this move.
According to a report by YourStory, MyGate laid off a similar percentage of the workforce in December 2022. Before the layoffs, the startup had 600 employees, but it has been downsized to 400. Like many other companies, MyGate also paid severance packages to fired workers, but a few were not offered any severance at all, according to the report.
In response to detailed queries, a spokesperson for the company said, “MyGate is doing well, and we are actively hiring to expand our teams in certain areas. We are a high-performance culture—from time to time, we part ways with employees who aren’t a good fit at MyGate, or if our requirements and opportunities warrant the same.”
Until now, the company has not commented on the layoff news. MyGate was founded in 2016 by Vijay Arisetty, Vivaik Bharadwaj, Shreyans Daga and Abhishek Kumar. The security management company offers security solutions for apartment complexes at entry and exit gates, alongside other security-related systems such as RFID cards, biometrics and vehicle stickers.
The company’s mobile app offers services like visitor, delivery, daily help management, and child security to individual residents. In December 2021, MyGate took over Bengaluru-based community commerce platform MyCommunity Genie in a cash and equity deal.
The startup bagged $12.2 Mn (INR 100 Cr) in a funding round led by Urban Company and Acko in November 2022. MyGate has raised a total funding of $79.5 Mn until now and is backed by Acko, Urban Company, xto10X, and Tiger Global.
The onset of the funding winter and macroeconomic factors resulted in Indian startups slacking off employees in 2022 to minimise costs and increase their runways. The trend has continued in 2023 as well, with multiple startups like OLX, Sirion Labs, and Innovaccer laying off employees. At the same time, tech behemoths like Google, Microsoft and Amazon have also laid off thousands of employees.
According to Inc42’s layoff tracker, Indian startups, including unicorns like BYJU’S, Chargebee, Cars24, LEAD, Ola, OYO, Meesho, MPL, Udaan, Unacademy, and Vedantu, have laid off over 22,000 employees since 2022 so far.
However, the funding raised by Indian startups plunged down by 79.6% to $941 Mn in January 2023 from $4.6 Bn in January 2022.
