New day, new timeline: Dunzo asks former employees to wait another 4 months for pending salaries

Dunzo has delayed salaries several times in the past

Cash-strapped Dunzo has again informed former employees that they will have to wait longer to get their pending salaries. The employees, who have parted ways with Dunzo will only receive their full and final (F&F) in January or February of 2024.

The decision to postpone salaries comes even as Dunzo is lining up $25-30 million in capital and looks to clear all dues that have piled up. The company had first held back a portion of salaries from June and July and had initially promised that all dues would be cleared on July 20. After it missed the July 20 deadline, Dunzo again set new timelines but has missed all of them on multiple occasions in the past.

"We are working towards ensuring all pending salaries are paid at the earliest. However, we regret to inform you that given the present business situation, the revised timelines by which we will clear pending dues, including salaries for the months of June and July, if any, in January - February 2024," Dunzo told former employees in an email. Moneycontrol has seen a copy of the email.

The hyperlocal delivery player is still promising an interest of 12 percent per annum on the service period. It has promised to pay interest even in the past, but is yet to honour those commitments.  

"Additionally, all other remaining payments, which include August/September salary for days served will be paid out by January-February 2024 as part of your F&F," the email added.

The development comes at a time when two of four co-founders are exiting Dunzo, both Mukund Jha and Dalvir Suri are on their way out, Moneycontrol had reported earlier.

Jha and Suri had also stepped down from the company's board, along with other representatives from Reliance Retail, the company's largest shareholder. Vaidhehi Ravindran from Lightrock had also exited the company's board.

That means five out of eight directors had stepped down from Dunzo's board and only CEO and co-founder Kabeer Biswas, Siddharth Talwar from Lightbox and Hongjim Kim from STIC Investments remain on the startup's board.

The exits come at a time when Dunzo has received several legal notices from vendors and is finding it difficult to keep operations afloat.

The struggle was despite Dunzo having raised close to $500 million since 2015 from Reliance Retail, Google India, Lightrock, Lightbox, Blume Ventures and several others.

Reliance is the largest shareholder with a 25.8 percent stake in the company, and Google was the second-largest with around 19 percent ownership in Dunzo, according to Tracxn, a private markets data provider.

Disclaimer: Moneycontrol is a part of the Network18 group. Network18 is controlled by Independent Media Trust, of which Reliance Industries is the sole beneficiary.