According to a company spokesperson on Monday, Mohalla Tech, which runs social media platform ShareChat and short video platform Moj and is backed by Google and Temasek, has laid off approximately 20 per cent of its employees due to “external macro factors” that have impacted the cost and availability of capital.
The announcement comes after ShareChat’s parent company, Mohalla Tech, shut down its fantasy sports vertical Jeet11 earlier this month, laying off nearly 115 employees.
As part of the exit, the company will provide financial packages such as two weeks’ pay as an ex gratia for each year of service, as well as retain work assets such as laptops and health and insurance policies for the impacted employees.
Ajit Varghese, ShareChat’s chief commercial officer, resigned last month after a two-year tenure.
Farid Ahsan, Ankush Sachdeva, and Bhanu Pratap Singh founded ShareChat in 2015. In February 2020, the company launched Jeet11 to compete with the popular gaming fantasy gaming platform Dream11, allowing users to bet on cricket and football matches. In June, secured $78 million (approximately Rs 633 crore) in Series H funding from Google parent Alphabet and Temasek Holdings at a valuation of approximately $4.9 billion.
Mohalla Tech claims to have nearly 500 million active users across ShareChat, Moj, and TakaTak, making it the largest homegrown social media organisation in India.
According to a Bain and Co. report published in October 2021, India has over 350 million online video users, with the user base growing nearly twice as fast as markets such as China and Indonesia.
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