The layoff saga in the Indian tech space continues to haunt the employees as the fintech firm ZestMoney is reportedly planning to lay off its 20 per cent workforce. As per media reports, the Goldman Sachs-backed company is planning to fire nearly 100 employees after its acquisition talks with the Indian fintech decacorn PhonePe collapsed earlier. The company currently works with a 450-member team. 

Founded by Lizzie Chapman, Priya Sharma and Ashish Anantharaman, ZestMoney is a non-banking-financial-company ( NBFC), which serves the country’s underserved clientele for small loans. It witnessed a 300 per cent surge in transactions during the covid-19 pandemic. Its revenue shot up to Rs 145 crore in the financial year (FY) 2022 from Rs 89 crore in FY2021. The company raised $140 million n funding to date from investors like PayU, Zip, Ribbit Capital, Quona Capital, Xiaomi, Omidyar Network and Goldman Sachs.

Currently, the company is going through a rough patch as it is facing a severe fund crunch. It is facing challenges to raise funds due to the ongoing funding winter. Its net loss has also increased to Rs 399.8 crore in FY 2022 from Rs 125.8  crore in FY21.

Prior to PhonePe, ZestMoney was in acquisition talks with BharatPe and PineLabs, however, both talks also failed. 

The Indian tech sector has been going through a rough patch since 2022. Nearly, 20,000 employees lost their jobs in the tech space. Highly valued start-ups like Byju’s, Unacademy, and Udaan fired employees as cost-cutting measures. This year has not offered any difference till now. According to a report by Inc42, Indian companies laid off more than 24,000 employees till now. Last week, edtech major Unacademy announced to cut down its employee bandwidth by 12 per cent in its fifth round of layoff.