LendingKart sacks 200 after securing Rs 319 cr fresh funding

Financial technology company Lendingkart Technologies, which raised over Rs 319 crore in Series D round of funding this week, has laid off nearly 200 employees (30 per cent of its workforce) in the Covid-19 times.

In a statement, the company said that the outbreak of COVID-19 and the resultant slowdown has compelled it take some measures to rationalise employee base across offices to ensure long term sustainable business.

"This exercise is an extension of our annual appraisal cycle, wherein we do rationalize the team by about 15-20 per cent basis performance. This year, additional right sizing has been undertaken to account for the business volumes that we anticipate in this financial year," the company said in a statement on Friday.

The management and leadership team at the company has taken significant pay-cuts.

"All employees exiting the company are being provided with ample notice period, extending up to 3-5 months, which is beyond industry norms, along with extended insurance and medical benefits," said the company.

Lendingkart joins a growing list of startups and unicorns, like Zomato, Swiggy, Ola, Uber, Livspace and Sharechat, that have sacked employees in recent days.

Set up in 2014, Lendingkart has raised over Rs 1,050 crore of equity capital from investors.

"The outbreak of Covid-19 and the resultant slowdown have had a tremendous impact on the economy. During these unprecedented times, the MSMEs, backbone of the economy, have suffered significantly grappling with varied economic uncertainties," Harshvardhan Lunia, co-founder & Managing Director of Lendingkart Technologies, said in a statement earlier this week.

Since its inception, Lendingkart Finance, a non-deposit taking NBFC arm of Lendingkart Group, has evaluated nearly half a million applications, disbursing more than 1,00,000 loans to over 89,000 MSMEs in 1,300 cities across 29 states and Union Territories.

The company said that outplacement services are being provided to support impacted employees.

Lendingkart, which has offices in Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi NCR and Kolkata, has a service reach across the country.