Unacademy Founder Gaurav Munjal and Relevel deny layoffs

New Delhi, Aug 18

After a report claimed that edtech major Unacademy has laid off employees from its job hiring platform Relevel, the company's Founder and CEO Gaurav Munjal said on Wednesday that there were no layoffs.

"No layoffs. We have moved some team members to other Businesses of the Group though. Team worked really really hard to ensure that we find a role for everyone," Munjal tweeted.

A Relevel spokesperson told IANS that there are "absolutely no layoffs happening anywhere across the Unacademy Group".

"At Unacademy, we are working towards profitability as a core objective, while ensuring all employees continue to have a bright future within the Group," said the company spokesperson.

"Some employees at Relevel were moved to open roles within the Group where their skills and aspirations match with the new role. We strongly reiterate our commitment of no layoffs at the Unacademy Group," the spokesperson added.

Moneycontrol first reported that Relevel "halved its team to 700 employees" amid the economic meltdown.

Relevel was launched in 2021 by Shashank Murali, Saksham Keshri and Prakash Kumar, on the back of strong traction witnessed in user growth, hiring company partnerships, and placement rate.

Last year, Relevel raised $20 million from its parent edtech company Unacademy.

In April, Unacademy laid off nearly 600 employees, contractual workers and educators, about 10 per cent of its 6,000-strong workforce across the group.

As the funding winter hit edtech startups and unicorns in India, Unacademy founders and management took pay cuts.

In an internal email last month, Munjal said that even though the company has more than Rs 2,800 crore in the bank, "we are not efficient at all".

"We spend crores on travel for employees and educators. Sometimes it's needed, sometimes it's not.

"There are a lot of unnecessary expenses that we do. We must cut all these expenses. We have a strong core business. We must turn profitable asap," the email read.

"We will be shutting down certain businesses that have failed to find the product market fit (PMF) like the Global Test Prep," he told the employees.

Unacademy last month said that a small fraction of its workforce (2.6 per cent) has been asked to go as part of a performance improvement programme (PIP).

Nearly 150 employees (2.6 per cent) from Unacademy's PrepLadder team were laid off.