Bangalore-based online budget hotel aggregator Treebo is trimming its employee count by 10%. The development was first reported by The Economic Times. Confirming the development to MediaNama, a Treebo spokesperson said that the company has asked 80 people to leave, “which represents less than 10% of our total workforce.” According to the ET report, Treebo currently employs 800 people.
The spokesperson added that “We have made significant investments on technology products and process innovations since the early days of our journey, even when we were small in scale…This, in turn, has allowed us to now take a critical look at our payroll and other costs, and rationalise them in line with our future plans.”
The statement read that this is in line with the company’s long-standing approach to build a sustainable business. “It is unfortunate that our commitment towards the economic health of the larger organisation has translated into us parting ways with some of our valued colleagues. We have tried our level best to offer them a smooth exit through such things like an appropriate severance package, accelerated vesting of ESOPs for colleagues nearing vesting milestones, and assistance in finding the next opportunity,” the spokesperson added.
Note that in June, Treebo acquired Events High, a marketplace for events and activities, to expand beyond its offering of budget hotels, and enter into events and activities segment. Post the acquisition, Events High employees were absorbed by Treebo.
In August 2017, Treebo had received Series C funding of $34 million led by Hong Kong-based investment firms Ward Ferry Management and Karst Peak Capital. Existing investors SAIF Partners, Matrix Partners India, and Bertelsmann India Investments also participated in the round.
Hotel booking has become a crowded space in India. There are a number of players which offer hotel booking online FabHotels, Booking.com, Hotels.com, Airbnb, to OTAs like MakeMyTrip-GoIbibo, Yatra, and Cleartrip. Recently, fintech major Paytm acquired Delhi-based hotel booking platform NightStay for $20 Million. Earlier, Flipkart-owned payments platform PhonePe partnered with Goibibo to allow in-app hotel bookings and payments, which allows to book hotels and pay for the same via the PhonePe app. Moreover, Google started allowing users to compare and book hotels via its search page directly. However, Treebo’s direct competition is OYO, which raised Series D funding of $250 million from SoftBank through its SoftBank Vision Fund in September last year. OYO also lists packages including, hotels, inter and intra travel service, tourist guides, meals, flights tickets, visa service etc.
