According to sources, at least 130 employees of Milkbasket are set to lose their jobs due to a restructuring exercise being undertaken at the startup owned by Reliance Retail.
The exercise is expected to impact employees from various teams, including tech, product, category, procurement, marketing, among others, as reported by the sources.
Over the past two months, the startup has been informing the affected employees about the development and has encouraged them to explore other opportunities, according to the sources.
According to sources, Milkbasket attributed the decision to role redundancy. As a result, the affected employees will receive remuneration in accordance with their notice periods.
In line with its ongoing efforts to integrate with JioMart and improve efficiency, Milkbasket is undergoing a restructuring exercise. Simultaneously, the startup is actively developing a new business model, which may also lead to a rebranding process.
In 2021, Reliance Retail Venture Ltd, the retail arm of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), acquired a significant 96.49% stake in Aaidea Solutions Private Limited, the parent company of Milkbasket.
According to sources, some of the employees affected by the restructuring exercise have the possibility of being absorbed into other verticals of Reliance Retail.
As of the time of publishing this story, no response has been received from RIL despite sending an email.
The most recent update follows closely after the departure of Milkbasket’s key executives, including the CEO, CFO, and COO. As reported by Entrackr, last year, three of Milkbasket’s co-founders had already left the company. However, in a more recent development, the fourth founder, Yatish Talvadia, along with COO Abhinav Imandi and CFO Gaurav Srivastava, have also made their exit from the company.
Milkbasket, established in 2015 by Anant Goel, Ashish Goel, Anurag Jain, and Talvadia, is a service that fulfills household grocery requirements, including fruits, vegetables, dairy, bakery items, and more, by delivering them directly to customers’ homes. Prior to being acquired by Reliance Retail, Milkbasket successfully secured a total of $38.5 million in funding from various investment rounds, with notable contributors like Kalaari Capital, Innoven Capital, Unilever Ventures, and others.
During its acquisition in 2021, the startup was operating in Delhi NCR, Hyderabad, and Bengaluru. However, since then, it has undergone significant expansion, extending its operations to encompass more than 30 cities, such as Navi Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, and others.
In FY22, Milkbasket experienced a 19% decline in revenue from operations, with the figure falling to INR 421.18 Crores from INR 522.62 Crores in FY21. Conversely, the net loss surged by over 99%, reaching INR 65.9 Crores compared to INR 33.17 Crores in FY21.
During the first quarter of FY24, Reliance Retail experienced a substantial increase in net profit, rising by 18.8% to reach INR 2,448 Crores, compared to INR 2,061 Crores in the corresponding quarter of the previous year. Curiously, in Reliance Industries Limited’s (RIL) Q1 presentation and post-earnings call with analysts, there was no mention of Milkbasket.
