Vedantu Innovation Pvt Ltd, which operates a live tutoring platform, has become the latest edtech startup to lay off employees after raising millions of dollars in fresh capital last year.
The Bengaluru-based edtech platform has laid off around 200, which is around 3.5% of its workforce of 6000 employees, a spokesperson confirmed in a statement.
The spokesperson added that 120 of the laid off staff were contractors and 80 were full-time employees.
"We have an annual contract with them, and at the beginning of every academic year, we follow a process of load rebalancing where we rejig pertaining to these roles, based on our growth expectations," said the spokesperson.
Vedantu relooks at these roles of its academics and assistant teachers with more technology intervention, restructuring of the class format, and changes in the categories.
Meanwhile, the company is also hiring more than 1000 employees in various teams including over 100 for similar positions, the spokesperson added.
Founded in 2011 by Vamsi Krishna, Anand Prakash and Pulkit Jain, 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 startup with a valuation of at least $1 billion.
Vedantu is the latest edtech startup to lay off employees. Some companies in the edtech space are struggling due to the rising competition.
Last month, Unacademy, operated by Sorting Hat Technologies Pvt Ltd, laid off nearly 600 employees comprising nearly 10% of its workforce. In March, Unacademy had let go over 100 consultants from its PrepLadder team amid “restructuring” of the organization.
In late February, another edtech statup Lido Learning asked over 1,200 of its employees to resign, and had said then that it was looking to wind down its operations amid a funding crunch.
Incidentally, startups outside the edtech space have also laid off employees this year. Last month, social commerce startup Meesho laid off 150 employees. In February, OkCredit, which is backed by marquee investors including Tiger Global and Lightspeed, laid off around 40 employees.
