siliconindia | | OCTOBER 20229witnessed the minting of India's 100th unicorn, it has been a slow month in terms of funding, with only $1.6 billion brought in, falling 53 percent month-on-month. June saw three startups added to India's growing list of unicorns. In some relief to the startup ecosystem, the funding picked up by 69 percent to hit $2.65 billion in the month.Hence, during H1 2022, India has seen almost $19 billion in startup funding. Though, during H2 2021, Indian startups secured $31.58 billion in funding or nearly 70 percent more than H1 2022. The funding momentum towards the end of 2021 had fizzled out. The slowdown stirred marquee investors such as Sequoia, KKR and Y Combinator to guide the startups in their portfolios on how to persist. Almost every investor was giving a clear message: cut costs and increase runway.Many of these startups interpreted that as consent to fire people as a `cost-cutting exercise', disrupting thousands of livelihoods in the process. As of now, 11,168 employees have been laid off by 32 Indian startups, which count unicorns such as Cars24, Ola, Meesho, MPL, Trell, Unacademy and Vedantu. The list also includes Indiabulls' social commerce venture Yaari. In May alone, layoffs by nine startups were reported to have impacted 3,379 employees. So far, June has seen layoffs by 18 startups. Yet, fewer employees are affected than in May at 2,409. Edtech has seen the most layoffs, led by consumer services and e-Commerce. It demonstrates that almost nine of ten employees laid off worked in consumer services, e-Commerce or edtech.The funding slowdown has affected edtech startups disproportionately. Along with laying off almost 4,100 employees, it has also noticed two companies closed as well. The result is that edtech has taken the most heat across all the industries.Tech giants lay off workersThe economic meltdown has reached Big Tech, and SatyaNadella-run Microsoft has become the first tech giant to lay off employees as part of `realignment'. The layoffs at Microsoft reportedly affect nearly one percent of its 1,80,000 strong workforce across its offices and product divisions."Today we had a small number of role eliminations. Like all companies, we evaluate our business priorities on a regular basis, and make structural adjustments accordingly", Microsoft told Bloomberg. 2022 DID NOT BEGIN WELL FOR THE LARGER ECONOMIC WORLD, AS A GLOBAL SELL-OFF PRESSURE STIRRED A STOCK MARKET CRASH. THIS HAS CONSEQUENTLY SEEN STARTUP FUNDING SLOW DOWN TO A TRICKLE
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