Dukan.pk, an e-commerce firm that enables anybody with a smartphone to create a web store, has reduced its personnel by around 25% as businesses all over the world embrace austerity measures as a result of a decline in venture capital financing.
Initial reports stated that Dukan.pk had been completely shut down, but CEO Monis Rahman told Profit that the startup was still very much in operation and that about 25% of the workforce had been let go. This is because the startup is concentrating on becoming profitable and reducing its reliance on venture capital funding.
The website for Dukan.pk is still up and running, which wouldn’t be the case if the firm had stopped all operations. “We do not have the choice of shutting down. Ever,” Monis wrote in a WhatsApp message to Profit.
We were not given information on the overall number of employees or how much the 25% adds up to. However, according to the Linkedin page for Dukan.pk, the company employs between 51 and 200 people, with 83 of those people being active.
If there were 100 or more employees, then at least 25 would have been asked to leave. Some of the workers were instructed not to report to work starting the very following day.
“All affected colleagues were asked to serve their notice period, except those who were on probation, terminated with cause, or those for whom we waived the notice period because they weren’t required for handovers,” said CEO Rahman.
“These are exceptionally challenging times for startups and the economy. Extraordinary and sometimes painful steps need to, unfortunately, be taken during downturns like these,” he says.
The layoffs at Dukan.pk came three days after Airlift, the face of Pakistan’s startup community announced that it will be ceasing all operations due to a lack of VC investment, which is hurting companies all over the world. Prior to this, Airlift indicated that 31% of its staff will be let go in an effort to expand its runway in the face of poor funding.
To read our blog on “Oware, a Pakistani startup, has raised $3.3 million in pre-seed funding,” click here