Digital health platform MFine has become the lastest venture capital backed startup to lay off its staff due to a lack of funds to pay salaries, two former employees at the firm said.
Bengaluru-based MFine, operated by Novocura Tech Health Services Pvt Ltd, has laid off over 50% of its staff, one of the employees added, asking to remain anonymous.
Newsportal Inc42 said that Mfine has fired around 600 employees, comprising 75-80% of the workforce.
An MFine spokesperson declined comment.
Mfine, founded in 2017 by former co-founder of Myntra Ashutosh Lawania and former chief business officer at Myntra Prasad Kompalli, offers consultation with specialists on its platform, apart from partnering with hospitals, clinics, diagnostics and radiology service providers to generate online demand. It also offers discounted health check packages in partnership with the hospitals. In March, it launched MFine has launched a heart rate monitoring tool on its app to help users keep track of its heart rate.
The lay off comes after MFine raised significant funding from new and existing investors last year.
MFine raised $48 million Series C funding round co-led by Moore Strategic Ventures and Beenext in September last year. The round also saw participation from existing investors, Stellaris Venture Partners, SBI Group Japan, SBI Ven Capital Singapore, Heritas Capital, Prime Venture Partners, Y’S Investment Pte Ltd. and Alteria Capital.
The digital health platform joins multiple startups across sectors that have recently asked employees to go, potentially in a bid to conserve capital in a difficult funding environment.
Just earlier this week, used cars platform Cars24 asked 600 employees to leave and edtech startup Vedantu laid off 424 employees.
In March and April, Unacademy, operated by Sorting Hat Technologies Pvt. Ltd, laid off nearly 800 employees.
Earlier this year, another edtech startup Lido Learning asked 1,200 of its employees to resign, saying that it was looking to wind down its operations amid a funding crunch.
Social commerce startup Meesho laid off 150 employees last month. In February, OkCredit, which is backed by marquee investors including Tiger Global and Lightspeed, laid off around 40 employees.
Notably, most of the startups that have laid off employees had raised significant funding last year. Cars24 raised $300 million in equity and an additional $100 million in December 2021, at a valuation of around $3.3 billion. Vedantu became the fifth digital learning startup in India to hit unicorn status after raising $100 million (Rs 740 crore) in its Series E round led by Singapore-based impact investor ABC World Asia in September last year. A unicorn is a privately-held startup with a valuation of at least $1 billion.
