Online math learning platform Cuemath lays off more staff

NEW DELHI: Online math learning platform Cuemath has laid off 100 more employees amid a challenging macroeconomic environment for edtech companies, the media reported on Saturday.

Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia Capital India) backs the startup. “Unfortunately, our revenue and cost trajectories are still divergent from expectations, and our problems are compounded by the bad macro situation around capital availability, particularly for edtech,” Cuemath's Founder and CEO, Manan Khurma, told employees in an email dated August 25, which is seen by Moneycontrol.

“This means that we will have to move to a leaner team structure, in which some roles will get redundant. That exercise is being carried out today,” he added.

In May, the company had laid off about 100 employees to improve efficiencies amid a worsening global landscape for K-12 edtech. “Post the May 8 exits, I had said that hopefully the company will not need to take a similar action again. And at that point, I had full conviction in saying that. But clearly, I had underestimated the extent of the turnaround required to get the company into a healthy situation,” Khurma was quoted as saying.

“For what it's worth, I and our leadership team worked very hard in the last few weeks to avoid this outcome. But we've come to the conclusion that we still have a long way to go and this action is inevitable,” he added.

When Cuemath announced layoffs in May, Khurma had returned as the company's full-time CEO, succeeding Vivek Sunder. Sunder came to Cuemath from Swiggy, where he served as chief operating officer. Cuemath, founded in 2013 by Manan and Jagjit Rai Khurma, provides an after-school online math program for students in grades K-12. In March, online higher education company upGrad laid off nearly 30 per cent of its workforce at its subsidiary "Campus".

According to leading startup covering portal Entrackr, citing sources, a lack of VC funding has caused layoffs in the startup ecosystem, affecting especially late-stage organizations. IANS

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