May 21, 2022

On-demand doctor consultation and medicine ordering platform mFine has laid off over 50% of its total workforce, said three sources aware of the restructuring plan. With this, the Bengaluru-based company joins several growth and late-stage companies such as Meesho, Vedantu and Unacademy which had reduced workforce as the funding environment turns tad slow. “mFine has decided to let go half of its total workforces,” said one of the sources requesting anonymity. “A major chunk of impacted employees are from operations, product and marketing verticals.” According to sources, the company is cutting the workforce to reduce burn and extend runway. Over the past month, venture capital firms have been instructing portfolio companies to put a halt on new initiatives and shut loss-making verticals as they contemplate the tough funding season ahead. The layoffs could go as high as 70%, said sources. While the exact strength of mFine before this layoff is not known, according to its LinkedIn page it has over 500 employees. Entrackr couldn’t get a response from mFine co-founders Ashutosh Lawania and Prasad Kompalli even after repeated attempts. We will update the story in case they respond. In September last year, mFine had raised $48 million in a Series C round co-led by Moore Strategic Ventures and Beenext. So far, it has amassed close to $75 million across three equity and debt rounds. While the company is yet to file annual financial results for FY22, MFine had registered a 152% growth in its operating revenue to Rs 12.9 crore in FY21 from Rs 5.12  crore in FY20, according to its annual financial statement filed with RoC. Its annual losses saw a nominal increase of 3.4% to Rs 102.7 crore during FY21 from Rs 99.35 crore in FY20. The slowdown in funding activities are impacting startups irrespective of their size, stage and valuation. To conserve resources, reduce burn and prepare for long winter, several companies had resorted to layoffs. In the past month, Vedantu had laid off about 625 employees across two tranches including 424 staff early this week. Unacademy also reduced hundreds of employees whereas Ronnie Screwvala-backed Lido shut down operations due to lack of funds. SoftBank-backed Meesho also fired 150 employees from its grocery biz: Farmiso. Meanwhile, over 800 employees of Byju’s-owned WhiteHat Jr were forced to resign after they refuse to work from office.