Exotel, a business-to-business (B2B) customer engagement platform, has laid off employees joining a list of domestic and global companies that have cut their headcount in the last few months.
“The total number of employees affected at Exotel is 80,” Shivakumar Ganesan, co-founder and chief executive at Exotel, said in a statement.
Employees across departments have been impacted citing poor performance and business restructuring. However, the company maintained it did not undergo layoffs.
“Some of our employees have been let go post the mid-year review as part of the performance improvement planning (PIP) process, which is a standard method to track and guide business performance,” Ganesan added.
Exotel said about 45 people– less than 5%- have been affected due to PIP and around 35 employees or 3% of the workforce were let go due to restructuring.
News portal Inc42 first reported the development.
So far, at least 2,600 employees across the startup ecosystem have been impacted in January 2023 alone. The number, seen along with the 19,000 employees Indian startups laid off in 2022, reflects the pain Indian startups have been going through amidst a tough funding slowdown.
For Bengaluru-based Exotel, the layoffs come a year after the A91 Partners-backed firm had raised $40 million as a part of its Series D funding led by Steadview Capital.
Founded in 2011 by Ganesan, Ishwar Sridharan, Vijay Sharma, and Siddharth Ramesh, Exotel helps businesses organise and streamline client interaction with its cloud-based AI-powered customer engagement tool.
It has so far raised more than $100 million in equity and debt. It also counts Blume Ventures, Sistema and IIFL Asset Management as its investors.
The company has expanded its offering to include an omnichannel cloud contact centre and conversational AI products to become a full-stack provider of customer engagement tools, after its recent acquisitions of Ameyo and Cogno AI. It has customers like ITC Salaam in Saudi Arabia, Bajaj Allianz, City Mall, Krazybee, Shadowfax, and TCS among others.
With the development, Exotel joins a series of startups that have been under pressure to cut costs and focus on profitability.
ShareChat parent Mohalla Tech Pvt Ltd, quick commerce platform Dunzo, edtechs Lead School, UpGrad-owned Harappa Education, industrial goods marketplace Moglix are among the companies to have laid off their employees this year so far.