Indian on-chain short video platform Chingari has laid off 20% of its staff as a part of organizational restructuring, according to a report by The Hindu Business Line. The affected employees will be offered a severance package equal to two months’ salary and three months of health insurance coverage. According to the company’s LinkedIn page, it has 241 employees as of now. Why it matters: In January this year, Chingari said that it was ramping up its hiring in the technical and creative departments. It also stated its intent to launch in Latin America and Africa with 400-500 open positions available for hire. Then in February, it received an equity investment of an undisclosed amount from the blockchain platform Aptos Labs to aid its expansion plans. According to its press release from June 8, Chingari generated $10 million in revenue in the financial year 2022-23. And the company was expected to generate $ 25 million in revenue by the next financial year. All of this makes one question: if the company was doing so well, what made it suddenly desire to conduct layoffs? The context behind the layoffs: Chingari saw a rise in value post the TikTok ban in India - with it racking up 3.5 million downloads within a day of the ban being announced, stated a Mumbai Mirror report. But ever since then, Instagram and Youtube have entered the space with their short video content. The biggest advantage that these two companies had was that people were already using their platforms, and…
