Desi microblogging platform Koo, which positioned itself as a homegrown rival to Twitter, recently announced that over the past year, it was forced to lay off 30 per cent of its workforce.
The company said in a statement that it acted on some role redundancies by letting go of 30 per cent of its workforce over the course of the year. Koo, which is just three years old, had claimed that it supported the employees who have been laid off through compensation packages, extended health benefits, and outplacement services.
We are making great progress with revenue and will look to raise funds in the future as necessary, a company spokesperson had said.
A Moneycontrol report, however, said the layoff, which was done discreetly, wasn't exactly smooth with some of the employees asked to leave with no reasons or explanations offered.
According to Moneyconrtol, in February, Koo co-founder Mayank Bidawatka told the employees that the company is planning to cut jobs without explaining the reasons for the decision.
Some of the employees then started receiving messages about a quick meeting with the human resources manager. One of the employees, who was laid off, said the call lasted less than 90 seconds and no reasons were offered for the layoff.
Another ex-employee of Koo said the company has been laying off employees at regular intervals and so, he realized what was happening the moment he saw his team lead and the HR person on the call.
According to Moneycontrol, the Bengaluru-based company did not give any written communications to the employees who were laid off.
Some said they were asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement saying they would not speak about the layoff, something which the company denied.
Some of the employees were asked to voluntarily resign. “We were told that if we did not voluntarily resign, it would lead to a termination and that our full and final (F&F) would not be paid out,” an employee told Moneycontrol.
The company even told some of them that only low-performing employees are being asked to leave.
Serial entrepreneur Aprameya Radhakrishna, known for building ride-sharing company TaxiForSure (which was acquired by Ola for USD 200 million in 2015), had started Koo—a language-focused microblogging platform—in early 2020. It was meant to be a homegrown, hyperlocal alternative to Twitter.
