Bounce To Minimise Its Staff By 22 Percent
Bike rental platform Bounce, on Monday, announced the minimising the staff by 22 per cent.
As per the company's blog post, this step has been taken due to Covid-19’s impact on business operations.
“Unfortunately, the way the external environment has continued to shift means our medium-term workforce needs have changed as several new business lines, products, and projects we had planned will have to either transform or be put on hold in the coming quarters,” Co-founder and CEO Vivekananda Hallekere said in a company blog post.
While we don't know the future, we hope that these cuts are sufficient to put us on a strong path to continue through the next period of global uncertainty and change," Vivekananda added.
He said that this is the biggest challenge the world has faced in a while.
This is the second such downsizing of staff this year. Earlier in April, the Bengaluru-based startup had announced temporary 20-60% paycuts for staff and a 100% paycut for the leadership team.
The mobility business globally has been one of the worst-hit due to the spread of the virus. In May, ride hailing company Uber had furloughed 600 employees in India across levels and teams. The same month, Ola had let go of a third of its India team members, affecting 1,400 employees.
The CEO’s note also mentioned that outgoing employees will be given severance of three months salary as per their original pay before the announced cuts in April, 2020. The employees will have this option of taking this amount in one go or have it credited to their accounts monthly, in an attempt to ensure salary credit continuity.
Additionally, Bounce will be reinstating the salary of the affected employees to the amount before the salary cuts were announced.
"As per the exercise, the entire deferred amount will be given to them," Vivekananda said.
Leaving employees also will still have the insurance that was provided by the corporate , until the end of December, this year. Employees with ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan) will be awarded on a pro-rata basis.
“This decision is purely an outcome of a change in our business priorities and does not either reflect the unparalleled capability, performance, or dedication of any member of our team," Hallekere added in his blog.
The startup is setting up a outplacement support team to help the laid off staffers find suitable jobs "at the earliest" and they’ll have the optionof being part of this process.
In his note, Vivek also highlighted the very fact that it's evident that the way people view the necessity for mobility will change even more significantly than than the corporate had expected.
"We have made valuable additions to our product offerings to suit the new needs and changing priorities of our customers, increasing the pace of electric vehicle adoption, but we also must acknowledge the world has changed even beyond what we anticipated," he said.
In January, Bounce had raised a funding of $105 million in its Series D round. The round was led by Accel Partners and Facebook Co-founder Eduardo Saverin's B Capital Group. Accel Partners India, Falcon Edge, Chiratae Ventures, Omidyar Network India, Maverick Ventures, Sequoia Capital India, and Qualcomm Ventures had also participated in the round.
The mobility startup is valued at more than $500 million, making it the biggest company in terms of valuation in the mobility segment in India.
The company recently entered a partnership with electric scooter startup Ather Energy, allowing users to shop for Ather 450 under its peer-to-peer programme.
Bounce operates a low-cost, dockless scooter rental model in Bengaluru and Hyderabad, with a fleet of more than 23,000 two-wheelers in 35 cities, offering both dockless-bike sharing and long-term rentals. The mobility startup claims to have completed over 25 million rides in less than 18 months. It clocks over 1,30,000 (1,00,000+ in Bengaluru and 30,000+ in Hyderabad) rides each day .
