Hyperlocal quick commerce player Dunzo has not paid the salaries for the month of November to its current employees. This is despite the company tying up with OneTap, a revenue financing firm, in August.
Dunzo, backed by Google and Reliance Retail, is facing severe cash crunch issues and has laid off more than 30 per cent of its workforce in the past few months.
Dunzo was in talks with investors to raise $25-30 million in a new round of funding, reported businessline. At the start of the year, Dunzo had more than 1,000 employees and has since undertaken three rounds of layoffs.
Deferred payments
This comes at a time when Dunzo is yet to clear its dues to existing employees, who, after multiple delays, have been informed that they’ll be paid only next year. The company has also deferred the payment of full and final payment to its laid-off employees.
businessline has sent a detailed questionnaire to Dunzo, which didn’t elicit any reposnse.
Dunzo is also reorganising its business model and will reportedly shut down 50 per cent of its dark stores. The company will explore delivery partnerships with supermarkets and other merchants.
The company also closed 20-30 per cent of its dark stores in Delhi-NCR and Hyderabad in late-December 2022.
Funding rounds
Bengaluru-headquartered Dunzo closed a $75-million financing round through convertible notes in April. The company had previously raised $240 million in equity funding in January 2022, led by Reliance Retail. Reliance Retail has a 25.8 per cent stake, while Google has about 20 per cent stake in the company. Cumulatively, the company has raised $457.6 million across 19 rounds of funding.