Bizcon Innovations Pvt. Ltd, which runs business-to-business (B2B) marketplace Yojak has shut down its India operations and laid off up to 140 employees from April to May, sources close to the development told VCCircle.
The company has laid off 60 full-time and 80 contractual employees, the sources added.
The Gurugram-based B2B marketplace was founded in 2019 by Anuj Jain and Rachit Garg.
Yojak looked to be smoother supply chain and fulfillment for small retail stores by working directly with manufacturers.
The company had also entered international markets of both developed and emerging economies with a focus on export markets across the European Union, the US and the Middle East.
News website Inc42 reported the development first.
The startup had started letting its employees go from the second half of April which continued till May, sources noted. As per a Deal Street Asia report, Yojak was in talks to raise $30 million.
Sources noted almost all the major functions were affected by layoffs, and employees in finance, operations, sales, marketing and tech were affected.
The company is looking to focus primarily on its export businesses in the Middle East and other markets, the above-quoted source noted.
Email to founder and CEO Rachit Garg did not elicit an immediate response.
The company was hiring new talent aggressively until the last two weeks, one of the sources said.
Yojak had raised $3.8 million in August last year, led by Info Edge Ventures, along with participation from KAE Capital and angel investor Arun Venkatachallam.
It also counts founders of Zetwerk, Bizongo, Blackbuck, Medikabazaar as its backers.
Multiple startups across sectors have recently asked employees to go, potentially in a bid to conserve capital in a difficult funding environment.
On Wednesday, learning platform Udayy shut down its operations and laid off the entire workforce, comprising up to 100 staff.
The company has decided to return up to $8.5 million to its investors, out of the total $13 million raised during its operations.
This month, digital health platform MFine laid off over 50% of its staff due to a lack of funds to pay salaries.
Earlier this month, the 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.
