Singapore-headquartered recommerce group Carousell announced the group is cutting 110 roles or about 10 percent of the company’s total headcount.

“Together with my co-founders and group leadership, we decided to reduce the size of our team by about 110 roles, representing 10 percent of our group’s total headcount. Only teammates from some business units are affected,” its Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer Quek Siu Rui said in a post on its website last Thursday (Dec 1). ” Only teammates from some business units are affected.”

Quek said he is “deeply sorry for this outcome, and I take responsibility for the decisions that have led us here”.

“Parting with teammates, whom we are grateful to for joining us on this mission, is a very difficult decision. We will be sure to treat everyone impacted with compassion and to lend as much support as we can to them,” he added.

In his note, Quek also pointed out that he had made mistakes for being “too optimistic” about the pace of the company’s impact versus its increase in investments.

“The reality is that we were quick to grow our expenses and hire, but the returns took longer than expected. Second, while it is easy to blame market conditions, I also underestimated the impact of growing our team size too quickly–larger teams lead to lack of clarity in decision-making and the additional coordination required to get things done,” he wrote in the note.

Quek also announced several initiatives and arrangements for the impacted regular employees which include monetary compensation, tools for job search, extended medical benefits and insurance coverage, among others.

Carousell is a classifieds and recommerce group in Greater Southeast Asia “on a mission to inspire the world to start selling, and to make secondhand the first choice”. Founded in August 2012 in Singapore, the group has a presence in eight markets under the brands Carousell, Mudah.my, Cho Tot, OneKyat, Ox Street and Refash, serving tens of millions of monthly active users. The companhy is backed by leading investors including Telenor Group, Rakuten Ventures, Naver, STIC Investments and Sequoia Capital India.

Earlier in May this year, Bloomberg reported Carousell has ended talks to go public through a merger with blank-cheque company L Catterton Asia Acquisition Corp amid market volatility. The report cited sources familiar with the matter. The special purpose acquisition company (Spac), which has been conducting due diligence on Carousell over the past few months, has not been able to reach a merger agreement with the company, the reported added.

Carousell joined the “unicorn club” in September 2021 after it has raised $100 million in fresh funds that value the company at more than a billion dollars.

South Korean private equity firm STIC Investments led the investment round then.

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