Bengaluru-based consumer credit startup Simpl has laid off another 30 employees a month after it fired 160 executives. The company conveyed this to employees over one-to-one meetings today, people aware of the development told ET.
The development comes after the firm, which allows consumers to buy products online and pay later, asked a few of its senior executives to resign on Wednesday.
Vatsal Jain, vice president, enterprise business; Ashwini Ravindranath, vice president, partner success; and Ramkumar Narayanan, vice president, product and operations have tendered their resignation, the people quoted above said.
“Today’s decision to let 30 of our employees go is a continuation of our organisation-wide efforts to become a fiscally prudent company and achieve profitability by mid-2025,” a company spokesperson said responding to ETtech’s queries.
The spokesperson added that the company has offered a severance package with a fixed salary for the notice period of two months as per the employment agreement and a 15-day fixed salary for every year of service with the company.
In May, Simpl laid off 160 employees, especially those in higher-paying roles. In April 2023, the BNPL startup has let go 25% of its workforce or around 150 employees.
The company has also restructured its leadership team. It elevated Vivek Pandey as its chief technology officer. He was previously a senior vice president of the technology team. Pandey will also be managing the risk vertical in the startup which was led by Simpl’s CFO Russell Byrne till date.
Bryne will continue as Simpl’s CFO and manage its capital markets function.
Simpl’s current CTO Puneet Singh will now lead the enterprise business and checkout solutions. Khanaz K.A. will continue to expand Simpl’s direct to consumer business apart from focusing on customer experience
“As an organisation committed to creating a shared value for our customers, merchants and investors, we have strengthened our leadership with an eye on accelerating our path to profitability by mid-2025,” said Nitya Sharma, founder, Simpl.
As of March 2023, Simpl’s total income stood at Rs 96.3 crore, up three times from Rs 32 crore in FY22. Its losses jumped 147% to Rs 356.7 crore against Rs 144.3 crore a year back.
In FY23, Simpl’s employee expenses had increased 3.5 times to over Rs 139 crore against Rs 39 crore in FY22. As per Tracxn, the company’s employee count was 613 in March 2023 against 300 employees in March 2022. In March 2024 this was reduced to 208. The company is yet to file its FY24 financials.
Founded in 2015, Simpl has raised more than $80 million in equity funding from the likes of Valar Ventures and IA Ventures. It had last raised $40 million in equity funding in December 2021. It offers a buy now pay later solution to its users on major consumer-facing applications like Nykaa, Zepto, Zomato, Goibibo, Meesho, Makemytrip, Myntra, Rapido, and Swiggy. It claims to have 42 million registered users and partnerships with around 26,000 such online merchants.
