School edtech unicorn LEAD undertakes another round of layoffs

School edtech unicorn LEAD has carried out another round of layoffs months after letting go of about 100 employees. The sackings come days after the startup reported a net loss of Rs 397.1 crore for FY22, which widened over three-fold from the previous year.

News publication Inc42 was the first to report that about 60 employees from the tech and product teams were asked to go.

"If projects don't meet success criteria or don't fit our strategic roadmap, teams are either re-assigned or asked to seek other opportunities. This is a regular business activity and a normal churn of 1-2 percent in an organisation of 2,000 people," a LEAD spokesperson said. The statement was sent to Moneycontrol on January 10 but the company didn't share the number of people who were laid off in the latest round.

In August 2022, LEAD sacked 100 employees after a performance review, which the unicorn said was a yearly exercise. Currently, the company has about 2,000 employees.

With children returning to schools, LEAD's total revenue more than doubled to Rs 141.6 crore in FY22 from Rs 60.5 crore in FY21, the startup's filings with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) showed. The company's revenue from operations also more than doubled to Rs 133.2 crore in FY22.

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However, its total expenses grew to Rs 538.7 crore in FY22 from Rs 186.6 crore in the previous fiscal, with employee costs surging more than 2.5 times during the year which resulted in bigger losses.

In a recent interview to Moneycontrol, LEAD's co-founder and chief executive officer Sumeet Mehta said school edtech startups might see stunted growth, prioritising survival and stability over innovation.

This also comes almost a year after the startup catapulted to the coveted unicorn club, raising $100 million at a valuation of $1.1 billion. On January 6, the company said it acquired learning company Pearson's K-12 (kindergarten through standard 12) business in India.

Founded by Mehta and Smita Deorah in 2012, LEAD runs a platform that tracks teacher and student progress, managing school operations on the cloud and providing digital resources to make learning more engaging. The company turned a unicorn in January 2022.

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