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In January this year, Grofers had shut operations in nine cities owing to poor uptake of services

While many of its competitors shuttered mid-way or fired massive number of employees, Grofers was the only company that weathered the storm— although it had shut operations in nine cities early this year.

Now, it seems the overall pessimism in the Indian hyperlocal/foodtech industry has forced Grofers to bit the bullet as well. The Delhi-based startup said that it has laid off employees, although the exact count has not been mentioned.

In a blog post titled ‘Heartfelt apology and some tough business decisions’, Grofers said: “In the past couple of months, we have been making some necessary strategic changes within the company. The changes we have made will, in our opinion, benefit our customers in the long term. However, these changes have made the new roles redundant and therefore, we are no longer able to continue with the offers we made a few months back.”

“As part of this, we have also had to let some of our existing employees go. We appreciate the contribution made by these employees as they helped us reach this level of growth. They have been valued members of Grofers and their separation is in no way a reflection of their performance. We deeply regret the steps that we had to take. We thank them for their efforts and wish them the best in the next part of their professional journey. For all our affected employees, we are offering severance benefits and outplacement services,” the post reads.

Also Read: Did investor pressure and mindless expansion lead to PepperTap’s ‘untimely demise’?

When contacted for the exact number of people fired from Grofers, Co-founder and CEO Albinder Dhindsa told e27: “ We are still going through the process so don’t have the exact number. Will get back you on this.”

As per media reports, the company has also revoked a significant number of job offers, days before the candidates were to join the company. As per Mint, the company revoked 67 job offers given to students from three premier educational institutes in India.

Started in 2013 by Albinder Dhindsa and Saurabh Kumar, Grofers is one of the heavily-funded companies in the delivery space. In November last year, it had raised US$120 million led by SoftBank, preceded by a US$25 million in April.

The Indian grocery and food delivery industry has been going through a tough time over the past 8-9 months. Many companies had to roll the curtain down on their business due to many reasons including inability to raise follow-on funds. Some cite mindless expansion and huge discounts for the crisis. Zomato, Peppertap, TinyOwl, and Nearby (from Flipkart) were among those who bit the bullet.

The post Grofers’s rough patch continues as the SoftBank-backed delivery startup fires employees appeared first on e27.

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