BENGALURU: The parent company of news aggregator Dailyhunt and short-video platform Josh, VerSe Innovation, has fired 150 employees- about 5% of its total workforce.
A VerSe Innovation spokesperson said, "Given the current economic climate, like other businesses, we’ve evaluated our strategic priorities. Considering the long-term viability of the business and our people, we have taken steps to implement our regular bi-annual performance management cycle & made performance and business considerations to streamline our costs and our teams."
According to the spokesperson, this has impacted 5% of its 3,000 strong workforce.
Apart from layoff, the company has also announced an 11% salary cut for all employees with salaries above Rs 10 lakh per annum.
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"To ensure long-term profitable growth, we have exercised fiscal and employee prudence and implemented a 11% salary cut," the spokesperson added.
VerSe Innovation is bullish across its entire family of apps -- Josh, Dailyhunt and PublicVibe to drive profitable growth.
In April this year, VerSe Innovation raised $805 million in the funding round at a valuation of $5 billion.
The round was led by Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments) along with Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Board, Luxor Capital, Sumeru Ventures and others.
VerSe had said that the investment will be focused on strengthening its leadership position as the fastest growing local language AI driven content platform in the country.
VerSe Innovation became the first unicorn in tech for local languages and counts Goldman Sachs, Falcon Edge Capital, Sequoia Capital India, Edelweiss and Omidyar Network, among others as existing investors.