Direct to Consumer (D2C) unicorn Mamaearth, which is slated for a initial public offering, has laid off employees from its parenting content platform, Momspresso. Mamearth has laid off 80–100 employees from the brand marketing vertical, according to sources.
In 2021, Mamaearth acquired a majority stake in the parenting platform Momspresso for ₹152.3 crore. Currently, Momspresso runs three business segments-a platform for user-generated content (blogs), brand marketing, and MyMoney, the influencer engagement platform of Momspresso.
Additionally, the company will be shutting down Momspresso, and MyMoney, later this month due to the latter’s mounting losses, according to sources.
The company refused to comment on a questionnaire prepared by businessline at the time of publishing the story.
As per Mamaearth’s DRHP, the net value (assets minus liabilities) of Momspresso was ₹16.2 crore at the time of its acquisition in December 2021. In FY22, Momspresso’s loss widened 42X to ₹10.9 crore from ₹25.7 lakh in the previous fiscal year. Its revenue increased a mere 1.1X to ₹31.2 crore from ₹27 crore in FY21.
The D2C brand, which had filed for its IPO last year in December, delayed its IPO in March, citing unfavourable market conditions. The skincare start-up, which was founded in 2016 by the couple Varun and Ghazal Alagh, is backed by investors such as Sequoia Capital and Belgium’s Sofina.