Edtech startup Frontrow has laid off another 130 employees, four months after it laid off 150 employees in May. 

The company now has around 40 employees after the layoffs. This move has impacted employees across roles including engineering, product, sales, generalists, operations and customer support domains.

Commenting on the development, FrontRow founder, Ishaan Preet Singh, said, “Unfortunately, as we realised that a sales and marketing-led approach to this market didn’t work with our current delivery model, we had to let go a large part of our team. We’re grateful for everything they put into building FrontRow into what it is today, their contributions are immeasurable. They’re also some of the best folks we have worked with and I’m sure they will do amazing things!”

Need for education

He added that the company’s belief in the market and the need is still extremely strong. There are millions who want to get better at their passions and they have been massively underserved in India and beyond. “Frontrow will continue to serve them albeit in a revamped avatar. We remain bullish on the space and what we’re building, and have sufficient capital and a great team to continue to solve this problem,” said Singh. 

Further, in a Linkedin post, Singh said, “Frontrow will be helping laid off employees to get placed (I’m sure very quickly). I’m extremely proud of the work they did. Their contribution to FrontRow was immeasurable and I cannot appreciate them enough.”

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Funding slowdown

Yesterday, edtech decacorn Byju’s also announced that it will be laying off 2,500 employees as it merges four acquired companies, including Toppr, Meritnation, TutorVista, Scholar and HashLearn into one consolidated entity. 

As the start-up ecosystem faces a funding slowdown, many start-ups across the globe have laid off employees, cut down on operational costs and turned their focus toward profitability. In India, K12-focused edtech companies have seen a particularly high impact of this trend, with majors like Vedantu, Unacademy, and BYJU’S laying off hundreds of employees.