Mohalla Tech, the parent company of Bengaluru-based social media platform ShareChat, has decided to lay off 5 per cent of its workforce. The company has also decided to shut down the fantasy gaming platform Jeet11. 

This development is expected to affect 100 employees from its 2200-strong workforce. 

“As a standard business practice, we periodically evaluate our strategies. We can confirm that we are ceasing operations of Jeet11 and have reorganised some of our functions, which meant the movement of this talent within teams and a few employee exits. This process has impacted less than 5 per cent of our employees,” the company said in a statement. 

This development came five months after ShareChat bagged a $255 million investment from marquee investors including Google, Times Group and Temasek. This funding round valued ShareChat at around $5 billion. 

Layoffs have become one of the most discussed issues in India currently. A Business Today report pointed out that since the beginning of 2022, more than 16,000 employees have been terminated by Indian start-ups. Prior to ShareChat, VerSe, the parent company of Josh and Dailyhunt, fired 5 per cent of its 3000 employees. 

Considering the circumstance, tech experts are anxious that the next year will bring more catastrophes in the sector. In his tweet, Gaurav Munjal, the founder and CEO of Unacademy wrote 2023 can be harder than this year. Munjal's organisation has also fired more than 350 employees in an attempt to keep itself on the profitability track.

At an industry event, Kalyan Krishnamurthy, chief executive officer of Flipkart seconded Munjal's thought by saying, "The next 12 to 18 months is where we will see a lot of turmoil and volatility, post which I think things will be much better."

Global situations are also similar to India. After the successful takeover of Twitter, Tesla CEO Elon Musk fired nearly 7,500 employees. Mark Zuckerberg-led Meta also terminated 13 per cent of its workforce to combat the worldwide economic downturn.