BENGALURU: Esports and mobile gaming platform Mobile Premier League (MPL) has joined a list of start-ups that have fired employees recently. The Sequoia Capital-backed unicorn has fired 10% of its workforce - 100 employees. It has also announced that it will pull out of Indonesia.
In an email to employees, MPL co-founders Sai Srinivas and Shubh Malhotra said that they are also doing away with the streaming product on the app. “It is time to make the difficult decision to redeploy our resources in other parts of our business to ensure our long-term health and success as a company,” the founders said, adding that they are exiting Indonesia.
“The last few months have been insane. The philosophy of growth at all costs is now reversed. The market is now rewarding profitable growth over growth at all costs,” they said. In September last year, the esports gaming start-up turned unicorn with its Series E round. After Dream11, MPL was the second esports start-up to join the unicorn club.
Edtech platform FrontRow is also said to have fired around 30% of its workforce -145 employees. Many start-ups from Cars 24, and Vedantu to Meesho and WhiteHat Jr, have been laying off many of its employees as part of cost-cutting measures amid a financial crunch in the market. Recently, while laying off 400 employees, Vedantu co-founder and CEO Vamsi Krishna told them that currently, the external environment is tough.