Vedantu lays off 385 employees in 4th job cut round this year

NEW DELHI: Leading edtech platform Vedantu has laid off another 385 employees, its fourth round of job cuts this year, as the funding winter gets worsen, company sources told IANS on Wednesday.

The layoffs have happened across sales, HR, and content teams which, according to the company sources, is part of an aggressive measure to reduce excess burn, thus prioritising profitability over growth.

With this round, Vedantu has so far asked about 1,100 employees to go.

When reached, the edtech major did not immediately comment.

In August, Vedantu asked 100 employees to go. The company had laid off 624 employees in May that accounted for over 10 per cent of its workforce.

The company had nearly 5,900 employees in May.

In October, the live online learning platform bought a majority stake in test preparation platform Deeksha (Ace Creative Learning Pvt Ltd) for $40 million.

Deeksha is one of the leading K-12 test preparation players in Karnataka and according to Vedantu, this strategic partnership will further its hybrid education strategy.

"With this acquisition, our mission is to empower and scale Deeksha's current learning model by deploying our disruptive in-house hybrid technology to reach the masses in remote areas and create impact at scale," said Vamsi Krishna, CEO, and Co-Founder, Vedantu.

In India, more than 16,000 employees have been asked to go by about 44 startups, led by edtech companies like BYJU'S, Unacademy and Vedantu, as VC funding dried up.