A Bengaluru-based virtual events platform named Airmeet has recently laid off 30 percent of its workforce, amounting to nearly 75 employees. Affected departments include sales, marketing, tech, and operations in India, the US, as well as Europe. In an internal email, Airmeet CEO, Lalit Mangal, cited reduced marketing budgets and commoditization of the virtual event sector as reasons for the layoffs.
Airmeet is a virtual event hosting platform, allowing participants to engage with one another instead of merely attending and viewing as spectators. The company recently secured $35 million of funding from Sequoia Capital, accompanied by Prosus Ventures and Sistema Asia Fund.
For Indian employees affected by the layoffs, Airmeet has provided two months of salary as compensation and hastened the vesting of their stock options until June 30th. Furthermore, they will receive health insurance coverage until August 18th. In the US, affected people will receive severance payments according to local regulations.
These layoffs follow a long list of over 27,000 job cuts within the Indian tech industry, comprising mainly edtech majors. Over 22 edtech startups have combined to let go of 9,781 people thus far.
The Airmeet organization has been around since 2017 and strives to create reliable, digital platforms for communities and businesses. It began as a mobile event platform but eventually diversified to encompass online experiences of all kinds.
