Startup Street: Zomato’s Cutting Jobs But India’s Most Sought-After Startups Are Hiring
Here’s what went on this week on Startup Street.
This week on Startup Street we have Zomato laying off hundreds of employees as it updates its tech platform with bots, or internet robots, and artificial intelligence. On the other hand, LinkedIn’s back with its list of the most sought after startup employers in India and most of them are hiring. WeWork’s pre-IPO jitters are getting worse; and hyperlocal startup MilkBasket may be close to bagging another round of funding. Here’s what went on.
Zomato Lays Off Hundreds Of Employees, Cites Automation
Restaurant aggregator and delivery service provider Zomato let go of 541 employees from its merchant and delivery partner support teams yesterday after it updated its tech platform with artificial intelligence and bots.
The unicorn is offering a severance pay of two-four months, depending on the employee’s tenure with the company, a spokesperson told BloombergQuint. This comes within less than a month after it fired 60 people from the same department.
“Over the last few months, we have seen our technology products and platforms evolve and improve significantly,” according to a statement issued by Zomato. “While the business has continued to grow consistently, this has led to an overall reduction in direct order-related support queries.”
The platform dramatically improved the speed of service resolution such that now only 7.5 percent of its orders need support, down from 15 percent in March, according to the statement.
Nearly 52-69 percent of all repetitive and generic job roles face the risk of disruption according to a study carried out by Teamlease Services in October last year. However, this don’t necessarily mean unemployment, instead a change in the type of jobs available, the report had said.
Of all the companies that responded to a survey carried out by the All India Management Association and PwC, 49 percent said they have implemented artificial intelligence in their businesses and were seeing benefits.
Business, on the other hand is thriving, according to recent tweets by Zomato’s Founder Deepinder Goyal. He claimed total monthly income earned by its delivery partners has surged past the Rs 200-crore mark for the first time, to Rs 216 crore. He also said the company aims to add 10,000 new jobs from direct employment and contracts in September.
Zomato’s delivery partner fleet has grown five times over the last year, yesterday’s statement claimed.
The Startups Indians Want To Work For
LinkedIn has come up with its annual list of startups Indians would like to work with, for 2019 and hospitality startup Oyo Rooms & Hotels has once again bagged the top spot.
Bollywood actor Hritikh Roshan-backed Cure.Fit and networking platform TapChief were ranked second and third. Others in the top 10 include RazorPay, Bounce, Playment, Rivigo, Acko General Insurance, mfine and InterviewBit.
And most of them are hiring.
So we tried to compile a list of job openings with the top 10 startups in LinkedIn’s list:
Oyo—Hopitality Startup
Oyo’s website breaks up its jobs between three large heads—those for fresh talent, also known as campus hires, those for experienced specialists and for technology enthusiasts.
Here are their total job openings in India.
- Suppy-chain Business Development Manager: 67 openings.
- Operations: 50 openings
- Sales: 46 openings
- Transformation:10 openings
Cure.fit—Health & Fitness Startup
With a total headcount of 500 employees so far, Cure.fit currently has seven openings, all in Bengaluru.
- Back-end Engineer.
- Full Stack Engineer.
- Front-end Engineer.
- App Developer.
- Product Manager: Consumer App.
- Product Manager: Growth.
- Product Manager: Cure.fit Digital.
TapChief—Networking Startup
- Customer Success: 1 opening
- Supply management: 1 opening
- Engineering: 1 opening
- Demand Growth: 3 openings
- Operations: 1 opening
- Supply Growth: 1 opening
- Human Resources: 1 opening
RazorPay—Fintech Startup
The company’s perks and benefits include flexible work hours, compensation and equity, Rs 10-lakh accident insurance, Rs 2 lakh medical insurance and MacBooks, among other things.
- Test Automation: 1 opening
- Strategy: 1 opening
- Product: 11 openings
- People Operations: 1 opening
- Marketing: 2 openings
- Infrstructure: 2 openings
- Automation: 3 oepnings
- Business: 29 openings
- Design: 5 openings
- Enginnering: 14 openings
- Others: 2 openings
Bounce—Startup For Hired Scooters
- Finance: 1 opening
- Operations: 20 openings
- Engineering: 10 openings
- CEO’s office: 3 openings
- Growth and Strategy: 2 openings
- Marketing: 4 openings
- Alliances and partnerships: 6 openings
- Procurement and supply chain: 5 openings
- Customer Support: 6 openings
- Data Science: 1 opening
- Product Design: 1 opening
- Product: 3 openings
Playment—AI Startup
- Marketing: 2 openings
- Engineering: 4 openings
- Business: 1 opening
Rivigo—Logistics Startup
The company has a total of seven openings currently, all in Gurugram.
- Software Development Engineer
- UX Designer
- Software Development Engineer - Android
- Lead Engineer
- Engineer Manager
- Software Product Engineer
Acko—General Insurance Startup
The startup has 34 job openings on LinkedIn—mostly in Bengaluru—for roles includng Branded Content Writer, Growth and New Initiatives Manager, Taxation Assitant Manager, Insurance Product Manager, etc.
WeWork’s Pre-IPO Jitters Are Getting Worse
The euphoria around one of the hotly anticipated initial public offerings of the year is turning anti-climatic at a remarkable pace.
Office sharing startup WeWork isn’t said to have slashed its market valuation to less than $30 billion, according to Bloomberg News. That’s over half the $65 billion valuation that its lead banker Goldman Sachs was expecting it to rise after its listing.
But the troubles don’t end there. Last week a report in the Wall Street journal said that the startup could also delay its listing amid skepticism about its business model and a long list of potential conflict revealed in its draft IPO papers.
WeWork is also in talks with Masayoshi Son’s SoftBank Group, its biggest investor, for more funds. That, too, could further delay the IPO and force a lower valuation than $47 billion it was worth at the start of the year.
This is yet another twist in the wild ride that WeWork has had since last month when it filed its preliminary prospectus. The draft papers showed how the company had racked up losses, burning through cash and had a corporate structure that was riddled with problems.
Milkbasket Could Raise $50 Million
Gurugram-based hyperlocal startup Milkbasket is in advanced talks to raise over $50 million, TechCrunch reported citing people familiar with the matter.
The four-year-old startup will look to use the fresh funds to expand its footprint in India. Milkbasket currently operates only in Bengaluru, Gurugram, Noida, Ghaziabad and Hyderabad. It allows users to order daily supplies, and also has a subscription service where they same items can be delivered every morning.
The Series C round of financing is likely to close within the next two months. Milkbasket has raised $26 million so far.
India’s hyperlocal delivery space is getting crowded, and a battle to gain market share is brewing. Milkbasket competes with heavily-backed BigBasket and Grofers. Swiggy, too, launched a new service called “Go” in Bangalore for last-mile delviery. Google-backed Dunzo has also started expanding to more cities. While last month, Amazon launched Fresh service to deliver fruits and vegetables in select parts of Bengaluru.