SoftBank backed SMB lender Kabbage shuts Bengaluru office, furloughs US staff: Report

Atlanta, Georgia based small business lender Kabbage has shut its Bengaluru office and furloughed a number of its US workforce.

The development was reported by TechCrunch, citing a memo from Kabbage co-founder and CEO Rob Frohwein. 

The executive staff will also reportedly take a considerable pay cut. The report comes at a time when companies across the world are struggling to deal with the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Founded in 2009, SoftBank-backed Kabbage employs 500 employees at its Atlanta headquarters and some 60 people in Bengaluru. The company uses machine learning to evaluate loan applications for small and medium businesses. 

The fintech company had received a $250 million investment from SoftBank in 2017.

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Kabbage began operations in Bengaluru in January 2019 with its office based out of Leela Palace, Old Airport road. The team in India started out operations as a captive technology unit and was yet to begin offering small business loans.

Emails sent to the company did not elicit any response at the time of publishing this article.