Agri-tech start-up Waycool has fired more than 200 employees from several departments. This is the company’s third round of layoffs in the last twelve months, as per a Moneycontrol report.
The layoff has affected employees from Chennai, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad. Its subsidiaries, including CensaNext and BrandNext, have also been reportedly impacted.
After not being able to raise funding, the company is trying to narrow down its losses. In February this year, there were reports that the company had laid off 70 of its employees in a restructuring process. As per Inc42, the layoffs conducted in February affected employees from several divisions, including sales, marketing, tech, and research.
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Last year, there were talks that the company might raise $40 million in internal funding. The fund was supposed to be led by Lightrock. A spokesperson of WayCool told Moneycontrol, “We are in the process of raising a $40 million round through a rights issue with Lightrock being the anchor. The round is close to getting fully subscribed, as we are getting good traction from institutional investors as well as family offices. We intend to close it in the next few weeks.”
However, the fundraiser never happened. Meanwhile, this year, the company even sought an extension to repay its debt to lenders as per a Mint report of April 2024. The company told Mint in a statement, “Our lenders have been very supportive of the effort [and] have extended our repayment tenure. With this, the repayment can be done with cash accruals after profitability.”
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The last fundraise for the company was in June 2022. The valuation for the same was $700 million. Meanwhile, Waycool said that it reported a loss of Rs 685 crore, an 89 percent surge in FY 23 as per Entrackr. The company also reported a revenue of Rs 1,600 crore.
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