Spinny, Tiger Global-backed used car retailing platform, has laid off over 300 employees in a cost-cutting exercise. The layoffs were announced by co-founder and CEO Niraj Singh during a town hall meeting on Wednesday.
An employee who was laid off took to LinkedIn and wrote about his stint ending at the used car retailing platform.
"I would like to announce that I have been laid off (from) Spinny. My tenure here was a very enriching but short-lived one. As bitter as this may be, life goes on." the employee wrote.
Spinny has about 6,000-6,200 employees and the sackings affect 5 percent of the workforce. The company responded to Business Today's queries and said, "We are merging our Budget and Luxury offering platforms - Truebil (Truebil.com) and Spinny Max (Spinny.com/max) - with our master brand Spinny (Spinny.com). This will allow us to offer customers a wider assortment of cars across price points and simplify the discovery of the right car for their needs.”
“We have witnessed a sharp uptick in demand for reliable, budget friendly cars as most people have resumed work from the office. By splitting our inventory of cars across different brand platforms, we were sometimes unable to offer enough options to such customers. With this consolidation, we should be able to meet the needs of these customers well,” they added.
This development comes at a time when the demand for used cars has slowed down across the industry after a sharp growth during the pandemic.
The company said, “We are merging our Budget and Luxury offering platforms - Truebil (Truebil.com) and Spinny Max (Spinny.com/max) - with our master brand Spinny (Spinny.com). This will allow us to offer customers a wider assortment of cars across price points and simplify the discovery of the right car for their needs.”
“We have witnessed a sharp uptick in demand for reliable, budget friendly cars as most people have resumed work from the office. By splitting our inventory of cars across different brand platforms, we were sometimes unable to offer enough options to such customers. With this consolidation, we should be able to meet the needs of these customers well.”
“This business reorganisation will strengthen our go-to-market business model, reduce costs and improve our margin profile, putting us on an expedited path to profitability. However, it will impact approximately 4.5% of our total workforce as we consolidate our operations under a single brand.
As per the report, these layoffs are going to impact employees of Truebil and Spinny Max, two subsidiaries of Spinny. Post the layoffs, the rest of the employees of the acquired companies would be merged under the Spinny brand.
Spinny acquired Truebil in 2020. Truebil was a Mumbai-based startup working in the same market as Spinny. On the other hand, Spinny Max deals with pre-owned luxury cars from companies like BMW, Mercedes and Jeep.
Spinny runs more than 55 car hubs and operates in over 22 cities. The company was founded in 2015. It has raised over $530 million so far, including a $283 million round in November 2021 which made it India’s fourth online car retailer unicorn after Cars24, CarDekho and Droom.
The startup is valued at around $1.6 billion, and is backed by Abu Dhabi’s ADQ, General Catalyst, Blume Ventures and Accel, as per Tracxn.