Inmobi, India's first unicorn, lays off 50-70 employees on performance metrics

Inmobi reportedly informed its workforce in December that it would skip the increment cycle for 2023 (Representative Image: Shutterstock)

India's first unicorn startup Inmobi has sacked 50-70 employees at the start of 2023, citing performance metrics, a report has said, citing a source who is privy to the development.

The employees who have been fired belong to Inmobi, as well as its second business Glance, which provides lock-screen-based content services, said the Business Standard report.

In response to an email sent by the newspaper, Inmobi reportedly said it evaluates the performance of "existing talent on an annual basis and makes decisions based on it". This is "business as usual for us and part of our annual process", the company added, as per the report.

Moneycontrol could not independently verify the development.

The sacking of the 50-70 employees, as claimed in the report, comes after Inmobi reportedly conveyed to its workforce that it will skip the increment cycle for the calendar year 2023. The SoftBank-backed firm, which has a total headcount of around 2,600, also said it would recruit fresh talent only when necessitated, a Financial Express report said last month.

Inmobi had attained the status of India's first unicorn in 2011, whereas, Glance achieved the tag in 2020 after it raised $145 million from tech giant Google and investment firm Mithril Capital.

Notably, Indian startups laid off close to 20,000 employees in 2022 as the startup ecosystem faced a prolonged funding winter.

The layoffs continued at the start of this year, with cab aggregator Ola announcing on January 13 that it would be laying off around 200 employees as part of a restructuring exercise.

This was followed by Swiggy, a food delivery aggregator, saying on January 20 that it will cut around 380 jobs. "We’re implementing a very difficult decision to reduce the size of our team as a part of a restructuring exercise. In this process, we will be bidding goodbye to 380 talented Swiggsters," the company said.