India's first unicorn startup, Inmobi, has sacked 50 to 70 employees this month, citing poor performance as the reason for the layoff, claimed report citing a source who was privy to the development.
The employees who have been let go are from both Inmobi and its second business, Glance, which provides lock-screen-based content services. In a response to the newspaper, the SoftBank company said that it evaluates the performance of employees annually and then makes decisions based on it. The company also said this is usual and is part of their annual process.
This comes after Inmobi reportedly informed its staff that the company will be skipping the increment cycle for the calendar year of 2023.
Unicorn Inmobi and Glance
Inmobi became a unicorn in 2011, whereas its second business, Glance, achieved the unicorn tag in 2020, after investment firm Mithril Capital and Google invested $145 million. The company launched Glance in Japan last year and is also planning to launch it in the US in the next month.
Wipro layoff for poor performance
This also comes within days of Wipro firing 452 of its freshers due to poor performance.
In a statement, the company said, "At Wipro, we take pride in holding ourselves to the highest standards. In line with the standards, we aim to set for ourselves, we expect every entry-level employee to have a certain level of proficiency in their designated area of work. The evaluation process includes assessments to align employees with the business objectives of the organisation and the requirements of our clients."
Layoffs
The layoffs continued through the beginning of this year, with companies like Ola, Amazon, Google, Swiggy, and others laying off thousands of employees in the first month.
Notably, due to a prolonged funding freeze, Indian startups have laid off close to 20,000 employees in the last year.
