The CEO and co-founder of the Bangalore and San Francisco-based startup, Vaibhav Jain, wrote an email to his employees earlier this week announcing the layoffs, people familiar with the matter said. ET has seen a copy of this email.
The layoff exercise, which has occurred across the board at the company, has seen a 50% reduction in some teams, a source said. This is the second such exercise for Hubilo in less than a year after it cut 12% of its total number of employees in July 2022.
In his email, Jain noted the impact of the pandemic on the company’s business, leading Hubilo to “decrease.”
“While the pandemic was in place, the pendulum swung and the physical facts came back with a vengeance. Organizations preferred to use the same vendors they used before the pandemic for their physical events. Also, mobile event apps are a commodity that now leaves very little room for Hubilo to innovate and capture sizable market share in physical event space,” Jain wrote in his email.
Hubilo did not immediately respond to ET’s inquiry on the matter on Thursday.
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Jain’s note said that due to current macroeconomic conditions, most companies are spending less on marketing and events. “Unfortunately, Hubilo hired in anticipation of the high growth we saw in 2020 and 2021. With a heavy heart, given the 2022 market conditions, I have come to understand that we need to go back to basics and return to efficient business operations,” the note to staff read. .
“My job in the coming months is to grow the company sustainably with a strong economic unity, also known as financial stability, so as not to allow the company to decline and further burn through our cash reserves.”
The Lightspeed Ventures-backed company last raised $125 million in funding in October 2021 in a round led by Alkeon Capital. In total, it has raised $153 million in private equity.
Jain also said that to act against the market dynamics of 2022, the company has been focusing on its mid-market segment. “In this segment, we believe events can be a pipeline accelerator that helps marketers increase revenue and move us away from a cost center solution,” she wrote.
“While we did see some green shoots in the fourth quarter for our new strategy, looking ahead to 2023 it became clear to me that the only way to build a sustainable business is by restructuring our organization,” he added.
The development came at a time when consumer internet and technology companies around the world are making layoffs to streamline their cost structures.
Earlier this week, ET reported that several hundred people at startups backed by companies like dunzo, ShareChat, GoMechanic Y rebel foodsand others.
In technology companies, the layoffs are largely due to the overestimation of growth by these companies.
Venture financing for startups fell by at least 30% in the calendar year of 2022 to nearly $24 billionafter a record year for fundraising in 2021, ET reported on Dec. 29, citing data from Venture Intelligence, which tracks funding for private startups.
