Pagarbook feels the jitters - laid off 80 folks 😬

What happened — PagarBook, an employee payroll and attendance management system, is apparently laying off nearly 80 employees — as growth fails to catch up while coffers run dry.

Founded less than 2 years ago, the startup basically helps SMEs manage employee time tracking and salary payments, and had raised its most recent round from Sequoia at a $100 million+ valuation!

Allocation problems — data is scant, but there were plenty of signs of excess, including a high profile marketing strategy that leaned heavily on celebrity power. For example, big bucks were spent on getting Akshay Kumar to push the product — which according to Moneycontrol’s sources “was useless and did not yield anything”.

Going ahead — majority of the marketing team has been laid off, while the tech teams stay put, tasked to spin out some product magic.

Bottomline — business is hard. And we’re sorry things didn’t work out best, but at a time when sirens of froth are at max, any speed bump on venture highway will be judged, and blown out of proportion.

Also, Akshay and Payroll? Come on bro 🤦‍♀️