ShareChat, the Indian social media platform, announced today that co-founders Bhanu Pratap Singh and Farid Ahsan have stepped down from their active roles in the company. A ShareChat spokesperson said the duo played a vital role in building the company to unicorn status and beyond. They will remain on the board and will be part of the ShareChat family. The company laid off 400 more employees a week after it announced it would be laying off 400 more employees.
The spokesperson said ShareChat would not be the company it is without their contributions.
The company has built a strong leadership team in recent years, and the responsibilities held by Bhanu and Farid will now be taken over by Manohar Singh Charan and Gaurav Bhatia, who will lead management and engineering roles, according to the spokesperson.
Since it was founded in 2013, ShareChat has come a long way, and the company is well-positioned to expand its reach in the Indian market, according to the spokesperson.
ShareChat is backed by some big names in the tech industry, including investments from Twitter, Google, Tiger Global and Temasek. The company has reduced its workforce by 20 per cent. Over 400 employees were affected by the layoffs. A month ago, the company and its short video platform, Moj, had already let go of 100 employees.
ShareChat confirmed the layoffs in a statement, saying that it had taken these actions in order to sustain a challenging economic situation. ShareChat has been built through the hard work and dedication of our employees, according to a company spokeswoman. We had to make some difficult and painful decisions due to external factors that have an impact on the cost and availability of capital. The statement stated that the goal was to prepare ShareChat to sustain through economic headwinds.