Furlenco, the furniture and lifestyle rental company, has downsized and brought its team size to 350. That means, it has laid off at least 180. The employees were formally informed of the layoffs by the senior management via a town hall.
As reported by the Economic Times, the Company has even temporarily shut shop at Jaipur, Kolkata, Chandigarh and Mysuru.
This layoff is part of Furlenco’s move to scale down operations across the country, including Pune, Kolkata and Ahmedabad and restructure costs on the whole. It is also looking at leasing warehouses going forward, to cut costs.
Founded in 2012, the Bengaluru-based startup was supported by investors such as CE-Ventures, Zinnia Global Fund, Lightbox, and even Bollywood actor Aamir Khan. It had managed to raise $60 million since its launch.
In 2021, Furlenco had taken on about 185 people in the areas of customer engagement and technology basis rising customer demand.
Therefore, not surprisingly, this layoff has been unexpected and has caused a lot of uncertainty. Additionally, the Company has decided to allow third parties to manage its assets.
One of the major reasons for this layoff is reportedly the wider adoption of technology. As a result, most of the customer-facing roles have been automated rendering many employees redundant.
The Company was founded by former Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley executive, Ajith Mohan Karimpana.
