Social-commerce unicorn Dealshare, focused mainly on grocery, has shut down its business-to-business (B2B) vertical as the company shifts its focus to B2C offerings. The company has laid off more than 120 employees as the company restructures its business.

At its peak, the B2B arm brought in nearly 50 per cent of Dealshare’s total revenues. Before the layoffs, the firm had about 1,000 to 1,100 people on its rolls. In January, the company laid-off around 100 employees, or over 6 per cent of its 1,500-strong workforce.

“We took some action in this direction by moving our operations to Gurugram and consolidating our business to focus on geographies of Jaipur, Delhi NCR, Lucknow and Kolkata with clear priorities on creating an online plus offline model,” said Dealshare spokesperson.

Switch from b2b to b2c

The company has shifted its focus on its B2C business as it aims to be ‘relevant to its consumers in the market.’ The shift would mean realigning the company’s budgets, reorganising teams and locations, the statement added.

The move comes at a time when the company is still struggling to find its product-market fit (PMF). Over the past few months, Dealshare has been going through structural change in its business model and core team.

According to sources, the company is facing some accounting and financial issues, which it strongly denied when businessline reached out to them.

“This is baseless and untrue. We strongly deny this claim,” a spokesperson of the company said in a response to a businessline questionnaire.

As per reports, the investors had stepped in and ringfenced a large part of the $150 million it still had in the bank. The management reportedly only had access to a limited pool of about $30 million. This move by Dealshare’s investors underscored the long-running troubles at the firm.

“The company is well equipped with capital as we focus on shifting our business focus from B2B to B2C as well as offline retail,” said the Dealshare spokesperson.

Fund raised

DealShare has raised over $393 million in total from Alpha Wave Global, ADIA, WestBridge Capital, Matrix Partners India and several others. In its last round, where it raised $165 million (January 2022), it was valued at $1.7 billion, as per Tracxn.

In July this year, Dealshare relocated its base from Bengaluru to Delhi to expand revenue streams. The company’s board asked its founder and chief executive officer Vineet Rao to step down. He holds over 10 per cent equity, according to data on research platform Tracxn shows.

The company has not disclosed its FY23 numbers yet, however in FY22, its revenue rose by 8X to ₹1,933 crore and losses widened by 6.4X to ₹431 crore. Dealshare was aiming to record a gross revenue run rate of $3 billion by March 2023.

The company is operational in about 100 towns, with a third of its business coming from the National Capital Region (NCR) and Rajasthan accounting for another 33per cent.

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