Toothsi lays off employees as it struggles to close fresh funding round
- ByStartupStory | May 12, 2023
Toothsi, a dental technology startup, has laid off around 20 to 30 employees in an attempt to extend its runway, as it struggles to close a fresh funding round, according to sources. This comes almost a year after the company raised $40 million in funding, which it had said would be used for building a team to expand into new geographies and categories. Toothsi’s tech, product, and testing teams have been impacted by the layoffs, which were announced two weeks ago, sources told Startup Story.
Founded in 2018 by orthodontists Arpi Mehta, Pravin Shetty, Manjul Jain, and Anirudh Kale, Toothsi offers customers clear aligners as an alternative to conventional braces. It also has a sister brand called ‘Skinnsi,’ which provides at-home laser-assisted cosmetology services. Toothsi merged with Skinnsi under a new brand called MakeO in September 2022 and introduced self-care products like a teeth whitening and oral hygiene product line.
Toothsi is the latest startup to join the growing list of startups laying off employees in a bid to reduce costs and target profitability, with funding taps down to a drip. To date, close to 91 Indian startups have sacked close to 24,500 staff members since the beginning of 2022. Toothsi did not respond to Moneycontrol’s queries at the time of publishing this story.
According to LinkedIn and Glassdoor, the company currently employs anywhere between 800 to 2,000 people. In the financial year 2022, the company recorded a revenue of Rs 78 crore, while it incurred a loss of Rs 184 crore. This loss was driven by a six-fold increase in Toothsi’s expenses, which amounted to Rs 263.4 crore compared to Rs 43.8 crore in FY21. Employee benefit expenses accounted for approximately 27 percent of the total expenses, totaling Rs 72.14 crore. The second-largest expense category was advertisement and promotion costs, which amounted to Rs 66.97 crore.
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