B Capital-backed packaging material startup Bizongo culls jobs

Packaging materials marketplace Bizongo said it has laid off an undisclosed number of employees as part of Covid-19 induced cost cutting measures.

“Bizongo unfortunately had to undertake a workforce rationalisation exercise forced by the raging Covid-19 pandemic and its after effects, resulting in a slowing economy. We tried to avoid this step for as long as we could, but had to implement the restructuring process due to the disruption to the economy,” Aniket Deb, co-founder and CEO at Bizongo, said in an emailed response to TechCircle’s queries.

The company enforced cost reduction strategies across non-essential overheads such as marketing, software and other fixed costs before resorting to layoffs, he said. “However, we were compelled to let go of many capable and highly valued teammates because of an unprecedented situation,” he said.

The company disbursed the variable component of salaries in April and provided severance packages for affected employees as per the contract, the statement said.

Online news portal Entrackr, which first reported the development, pegged the number of laid off employees at 140.

Deb founded Bizongo in March 2015 with fellow IIT graduates Ankit Tomar and Sachin Agrawal. The B2B technology platform provides packaging solutions to small and medium enterprises, as well as large companies across India.

It also offers Artwork Flow, a software-as-a-solutions (SaaS)-based platform that enables digitisation of artwork management processes between teams. Its other software products include Design Square and Procure Live.

The five-year-old startup has raised $71.69 million so far, as per data available on VCCEdge. It last raised $30 million in a Series C funding round earlier this year, led by Swiss hedge fund Schroder Adveq. It also received $37 million in two tranches as part of a Series B funding round, led by B Capital and IFC.