Event management platform Hubilo lays off 35% of its workforce

Around 115 employees were impacted in the Hubilo layoffs.

Hubilo, a virtual conference and event management startup, has laid off nearly 35 per cent of its workforce or around 115 employees across operations as the firm is undergoing ‘restructuring’, multiple sources told Moneycontrol.

“The company had to take this difficult decision as we are completely restructuring due to the global macroeconomic pressures. Around 115 employees are affected in this,” a member of the management told Moneycontrol.

The laid-off employees were paid severance packages and other placement support to ensure that they find new jobs, the person quoted above said.
The firm hired aggressively in 2020 and 2021 as the demand for virtual events skyrocketed during the pandemic.

The spokesperson also said that Hubilo will now be focussing more on physical events to align with the market changes.

Videoconferencing platforms have struggled post the pandemic, during which time they saw record revenues. Zoom, for example, which was a pandemic darling has since seen its revenue fall, and the company has also lowered its 2023 revenue growth guidance.

This comes five months after the firm undertook its first round of layoffs, letting go of nearly 12% of its staff as the demand for online events subsided post-removal of covid-led lockdowns.

Hubilo had around 330 employees before the new round of layoffs.

Founded in 2015 by Vaibhav Jain and Mayank Agarwal Hubilo was started as a virtual networking platform and virtual event organization platform. It claims to have more than 1000 clients including marquee names such as Facebook, Walmart and the United Nations.

“We have changed our strategy and we have set clear goals for 2023 and beyond. As a company we are very well capitalised and we will focus more on physical events to sustain and we want to be market proof,” a person close to the development said.

The San Francisco and Bengaluru-based company in 2021 raised around $125 million in its Series B funding round led by Alkeon Capital with participation from Lightspeed Venture Partners and Balderton Capital.

In 2020, Hubilo raised a seed round of $4.5 million and a Series ‘A’ round of $23.5 million from leading Venture Capital firms like Lightspeed Venture Partners and Balderton Capital, and several renowned angel investors.

The round also included angel investors Freshworks CEO Girish Mathrubootham; former LinkedIn India CEO Nishant Rao; Slideshare co-founder Jonathan Boutelle; and Helpshift CEO Abinash Tripathy.
Around 60 percent of Hubilo’s revenues come from the US market, around 20 percent comes from EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) and about 20% comes from the Asia-pacific region.