- ByStartupStory | May 9, 2024
Simpl, a leading buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) fintech startup, has announced the layoff of over 100 employees across various departments, in a strategic move aimed at achieving profitability by the middle of 2025. The announcement was made by Nitya Sharma, CEO and Co-founder, during a town hall meeting on Wednesday morning.
The company, which previously employed approximately 650 people including core operations staff, interns, and calling agents, stated that the layoffs affected a broad range of positions, including some high-level roles. In an effort to support the affected employees, Simpl has promised to provide severance packages that include two months of salary, an additional 15 days of salary for every year of service, extended medical insurance, and outplacement services.
A source revealed that some employees were logged out of their Slack accounts even before the town hall meeting began. This action indicates the sudden nature of the layoffs, which came as a surprise to many, especially since some staff members were anticipating performance appraisals instead.
The layoffs are part of a larger effort by Simpl to streamline operations and reduce costs, as explained by Ashish Kulshrestha, head of corporate communications at Simpl. “As an organisation committed to creating a shared value for our merchants, and millions of customers across the country, we have undertaken a series of measures to improve operational efficiencies, reduce fixed and overhead costs, along with taking the difficult decision of letting go of some of our talented employees. These efforts are enabling us to accelerate our journey towards profitability and build a fiscally prudent organisation. We have laid out a comprehensive growth plan while having a razor sharp focus on profitability in order to advance our mission of enabling e-commerce and direct-to-customer merchants to provide enhanced convenience to their customers,” Kulshrestha stated.
This is not the first time Simpl has had to make such difficult decisions; in April of last year, the company reduced its workforce by over 150 employees after acknowledging an overestimation of post-pandemic e-commerce demand.
The layoffs come on the heels of a $40 million Series B fundraising round in 2021, which was led by Valar Ventures & IA Ventures. This funding round followed four years after the company’s Series A round in 2017, marking significant growth and investment interest in the BNPL sector.
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