OYO Founder and CEO Ritesh Agarwal
Hospitality chain startup OYO confirms staff layoffs in India [ET Tech]
Indian hospitality chain OYO Hotels and Homes confirmed that it has laid off part of its Indian workforce. CEO Ritesh Agarwal stated “sustainable growth and profit issue” as the reason behind the decision.
It is estimated that 1,200 employees have been cut in India, in addition to 500 job losses in China, Bloomberg reported last week. The layoffs were detailed in an internal email by founder Ritesh Agarwal to employees on Monday morning, focussing primarily in mid-management, business development, sales and operations roles, and in select technology teams that have become “redundant”.
An article by ET further noted that a top company executive also shared that the intention is to bring the headcount down by another 20 per cent at least and launch another resizing exercise by the end of March.
“As a result, we are asking some of our impacted colleagues to move to a new career outside of Oyo. This has not been an easy decision for us,” said Agarwal.
“Every ‘Oyopreneur’ is important to Oyo and ensuring their well-being both during and after their tenure is our number one priority. I want to thank them for their efforts and apologise for the impact this is causing,” he added.
Nikkei Asian Review states that Oyo’s losses have widened more than sixfold to US$336 million during the financial year ended March 2019, even as revenues rose over fourfold during the period, with the majority of the company’s expenses attributed to operational expenses. Oyo also faces complaints from a group of hotel operators in the southern city of Bengaluru that has turned into criminal charges on the startup for allegedly withholding money due to unfair fee increases.
Indian B2B agritech startup TechnifyBiz secures US$2M funding from Omnivore [YourStory]
India-based B2B agritech startup TechnifyBiz announces that it has raised US$2 million seed funding from Omnivore, Razorpay founders, the Insitor Impact Asia Fund, and others, YourStory has learned.
The company was founded in 2017 by IIT grads Akash Sharma and Abhishek Agarwal. The B2B agritech startup organises “the non-perishable food commodity market by improving farmers’ linkages with food processors and wholesale buyers”.
The startup’s current investors include angels R Narayan, Founder of Power2SME, and Rajneesh Gupta, Director at Aakash Namkeen (wholesaler of snacks and savouries) as well as agritech incubator Indigram Labs.
The platform currently offers 10 commodities: makhana, cashews, almonds, raisins, walnut, quinoa, chia, pasta, sunflower seed, and watermelon seeds.
Google acquires the second startup co-founded by Irish entrepreneur Mark Cummins [Business Insider]
Google announces that it has bought Dublin-based Pointy, a startup that allows people to find out what their local stores have in physical stock with a small, physical box that plugs into local retailers’ barcode scanners, tracks what they sell, and then displays what they have to potential customers looking up the business online.
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The startup is co-founded by Mark Cummins, making it the second company that Google acquires from Cummins, who was once rejected from a job at Google before going on to found his first startup Plink, and selling it to Google in 2010.
According to an article by Business Insider, the deal is expected to close in the coming weeks.
SEED Ventures obtains Capital Markets Services Licence, to provide Venture Capital fund management services [Press Release]
SEED Ventures (SV), a venture capital firm headquartered in Singapore, announces that it has been granted a Capital Markets Services licence by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).
With the CMS licence, SV will be able to invest in startups on behalf of its investors via its Venture Capital Fund Management service.
Ian Gan, founder and Chief Executive Officer of SV, said: “This licence is a significant milestone for SV and further entrenches our role in Singapore as a seed-stage VC company. We are delighted to be one of the few VCs to receive approval from the MAS. The licence will enable us to expand our investor base by managing funds from accredited and institutional investors.”
Founded in 2013, SV is heavily involved in entrepreneurship activities in Statutory boards and Institutes of Higher Learning in Singapore such as National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore Management University (SMU) and Agency for Science, Technology, and Research (A*STAR).
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Picture Credit: OYO
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