BENGALURU: Despite raising fresh capital from investors in August, beleaguered BNPL (buy now pay later) start-up ZestMoney will shut down its operations by the end of this month. It will let go of all 150 employees.
A source aware of this development said the management informed this decision to employees in a townhall meeting on Tuesday and they are in a state of shock as they never expected this coming. The management has assured employees that they will receive December salaries. The start-up raised the capital from its existing investors recently from Quona Capital, Flourish Ventures and Scarlet Capital, among others, and it said the new funding will help them drive business towards profitability.
ZestMoney claims it has over 17 million registered users. In March after an acquisition deal with PhonePe fell through, ZestMoney laid off about 20% or 100 employees. Founded in 2015 by Lizzie Chapman, Priya Sharma and Ashish Anantharaman, it was last valued at $470 million. In September 2021, it raised $50 million, and in June 2022, the start-up raised around $20 million. Earlier this year, founders stepped down and appointed a new management, but the company has been struggling to sustain for many months now.