Virat Kohli, Anushka Sharma-endorsed Toothsi lays off 20-30 employees amid funding crunch

Toothsi's tech, product, and testing teams have been impacted by the layoffs.

Dental technology startup Toothsi, which counts prominent celebrities like cricketer Virat Kohli and actor Anushka Sharma as brand ambassadors, has laid off about 20 to 30 employees in an attempt to extend its runway, as it struggles to close a fresh funding round, according to sources aware of the matter.

This comes almost a year after the company raised $40 million in funding, which it had said would be used for building a team to expand into new geographies and categories.

Toothsi's tech, product, and testing teams have been impacted by the layoffs, which were announced two weeks ago, sources told Moneycontrol.

“Tech is a very small part of Toothsi's model, the company relies heavily on its sales and marketing function. That is why they are trying to minimise their tech team, sales seems unaffected as of now,” they added.

In May 2022, Toothsi raised $40 million in a round of funding from a clutch of investors, including veteran banker Aditya Puri, Eight Roads Ventures, Paramark and IIFL. It also raised a debt round of $9 million in a venture debt round from Stride Ventures, earlier in the year. Before that, the company had raised $25 million in two rounds in 2021.

Toothsi did not respond to Moneycontrol’s queries at the time of publishing this story.

Founded in 2018 by orthodontists Arpi Mehta, Pravin Shetty, Manjul Jain, and Anirudh Kale, the company offers customers clear aligners as an alternative to conventional braces. It also has a sister brand called 'Skinnsi,' which provides at-home laser-assisted cosmetology services. In September 2022, the company merged Toothsi and Skinnsi under a new brand called MakeO.

Around the same time, it also introduced self-care products like a teeth whitening and oral hygiene product line.

Toothsi is the latest to join the growing list of startups laying off employees in a bid to reduce costs and target profitability, with funding taps down to a drip. To date, close to 91 Indian startups have sacked close to 24,500 staff members since the beginning of 2022.

According to LinkedIn and Glassdoor, the company currently employs anywhere between 800 to 2,000 people. In the financial year 2022, the company recorded a revenue of Rs 78 crore, while it incurred a loss of Rs 184 crore.

This loss was driven by a six-fold increase in Toothsi's expenses, which amounted to Rs 263.4 crore compared to Rs 43.8 crore in FY21. Employee benefit expenses accounted for approximately 27 percent of the total expenses, totalling Rs 72.14 crore. The second largest expense category was advertisement and promotion costs, which amounted to Rs 66.97 crore.