News Update

Few staff at Plum Insurance which is backed by Tiger Global laid off

• ByStartupStory     |    November 10, 2022

Two sources with knowledge of the situation claim that Plum Insurance, an enterprise-focused group insurance platform, is laying off few employees. They claimed that on Tuesday, emails were sent to staff informing them of this change.

Abhishek Poddar, the company’s CEO and co-founder verified the news. Plum is thought to employ roughly 300 people. Through WhatsApp, Poddar informed that “We have 36 team members leaving Plum.” “This makes up about 10% of our business.” This development occurred shortly after Plum’s founder stated that the company expects to increase its staff base to 1,000 by March 2023 or FY23. With this decision, Plum joins a lengthy line of startups that have recently started laying off staff members. Plum received $15.6 million in its Series A round, which was headed by Tiger Global, in June of last year. Surge Venture and Tanglin Venture also took part. Plum was a member of Surge, the accelerator programme run by Sequoiafourth,’s batch.

Three-year-old Plum, run by Poddar and Saurabh Arora, offers group insurance services to startups and SMEs. Additionally, the Bengaluru-based business offers medical services like doctor consultations, physicals, mental wellness, nutrition, and dental care.

On Wednesday, the corporation will complete the list of affected personnel. To rein in its spending, the corporation has been experimenting with a number of cost-cutting strategies, according to a second person who asked to remain anonymous. Poddar stressed that the business will make all necessary arrangements for the workers who are being let go in the interim. The impacted employees, according to him, will receive severance pay, healthcare benefits, counselling for their well-being, ESOP vesting, as well as dedicated placement and career support. “We have founded Plum on the principle of caring for our employees and their families. But over the past six months, the world has undergone a significant transformation, both economically and otherwise. We definitely need to balance the pace and magnitude of our investments with the market’s realities, Poddar continued, even though our firm, which sits at the crossroads of two secular growth industries — insurance and healthcare — is well-positioned to weather such an uncertain climate. Plum said earlier this year that the company is hiring for a variety of positions. According to insiders, the company’s recent round of layoffs may be due to a lack of funding and uncertainty around the next phase. In addition to early-stage firms including Fampay, Groww, UpStox, ClassPlus, Smallcase, Twilio, StayAbode, Unacademy, Oyo, Instawork, Posist, TapChief, and Fyle, Plum claims to work with close to 2,000 businesses overall. In the midst of a funding crisis, Plum is one of the rare insurance companies that have to lay off employees. One of Plum’s rivals, Nova Benefits, laid off about 70 workers in June of this year. Along with Nova, it contends with PazCare, Secure Now, and Onsurity.

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