Digital entertainment platform Pocket Aces Pictures Pvt Ltd has laid off 50 employees or about 20% of its workforce as part of a corporate restructuring drive, joining the long list of Indian startups that have been trimming their headcount to cut costs.
“As we continue to march towards our vision of becoming culture creators that positively influence people via our content and products, we had to take some difficult but necessary steps to keep our operating model agile and resilient. These operating model changes mean that we have had to move 20% of our team out of full-time roles,” Pocket Aces said in a statement.
Employees from Pocket Aces’ content, production and post-production departments were affected by the exercise, it added.
The development was first reported by online news portal The Economic Times.
On long-form content, Pocket Aces looks to shift its operating model to a freelance-heavy one. As for short-form content, it is focusing much on a creator-led Instagram-first model, as per the official statement.
Pocket Aces was founded by Anirudh Pandita, Aditi Shrivastava and Ashwin Suresh in 2013. It conceptualizes, creates and distributes written and video content including web series through its social media and online channels – Dice Media, FilterCopy, Gobble, Nutshell and Clout.
“We deeply care about the people leaving us and will provide them with financial support, ongoing health insurance coverage and help them with their transition. We will also continue to work with many of them in a freelance model and help others with outplacements,” Aditi Shrivastava, co-founder and chief executive at Pocket Aces said.
Competitors of Pocket Aces’ brands include over-the-top (OTT) platform The Viral Fever and mobile e-sports platform Mobile Premier League.
In 2016, Pocket Aces had raised $3 million in a round of funding led by venture capital firm Sequoia Capital India. The fundraise also saw participation from North Base Media, Aarin Capital, 3one4 Capital and Axilor Ventures, among others.
With this, the digital entertainment startup joins the long list of Indian startups that have laid off their employees citing a slew of reasons including cost-optimization, corporate restructuring, or performance-based layoffs since 2022.
Amongst the most recent ones, RoboticWares Pvt. Ltd, which runs logistics software as a service (SaaS) platform FarEye, on Saturday announced that it let go of around 90 employees from its 750-strong workforce in a bid to align its resources. The firm had handed pink slips to about 250 last year citing “strategic realignment to focus its efforts and resources” as the reason behind layoffs.
Last week, VCCircle reported that OLX Group, the classifieds unit of Naspers-owned internet group Prosus, is planning to let go of 15%, or over 1,500 employees of its global workforce citing restructuring, adding to the list of 22,000 staff that have been fired since the last year.