The slew of layoffs that involve 100-120 employees, including the company’s chief technology officer have been mandated by investors, sources said
New Delhi: Third Wave Coffee has laid off up to 100-120 employees across several departments, according to media reports.
The development comes months after the company that runs 109 coffee bars in India had raised $35 million in its Series-C funding from a clutch of investors private equity firm Creaegis, Westbridge Capital and Udaan’s founder Sujeet Kumar.
IndiaRetailing had learned about the layoffs on Tuesday from a source.
“Layoffs are happening at Third Wave Coffee today. They are on as we speak,” the source had texted in a WhatsApp message to IndiaRetailing.
The person had said that Third Wave Coffee’s chief technology officer Prafull Paliwal was also sacked as part of the process. Paliwal had updated “#OpenToWork seeking new job opportunities” status on his LinkedIn account. Paliwal did not respond to IndiaRetailing’s messages sent through LinkedIn.
IndiaRetailing had contacted a host of Third Wave Coffee officials including chief executive Sushant Goel. When IndiaRetailing contacted Goel on Tuesday about the layoffs, he said the news was incorrect. “Nothing like that happened,” Goel said before hanging up on the reporter. Girish Menon, business development manager for Third Wave Coffee also said to this website that the news about the sacking of staff was “wrong information.”
IndiaRetailing decided not to run the story on Tuesday based on the denials by the company officials.
The source quoted above told IndiaRetailing that the latest firing of employees is coming at the behest of some of the investors.
Another source said the investors have mandated Third Wave Coffee to sack about 20% of its employees, which will happen in phases.
Third Wave Coffee was founded by Sushant Goel, Ayush Bathwal, and Anirudh Sharma in 2017. The coffee brand is run by Heisetasse Beverages Private Ltd., an Indian company that has more 100 cafes across different Indian cities namely Hyderabad, Coonoor, Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai, Chandigarh, and Pune.
