Pomelo cuts 8% of headcount as it 'streamlines processes towards growth'

ECommerce firm Pomelo joins a slew of companies making job cuts recently. Pomelo's spokesperson told MARKETING-INTERACTIVE that the company will downsize 8% of its headcount, which amounts to 55 employees, as part of efforts to "streamline its processes to move toward more sustainable growth".

"Pomelo has been growing rapidly, and with this came processes that did serve us on the growth trajectory. In the current economic environment, however, it became clear that we have to streamline these processes in order to move towards more sustainable growth," the spokesperson said.

"With our vision to become a leaner and faster organisation in order to grow sustainably, the leadership team worked together to rethink the structure and size of each team. Decisions were then made based on streamlined processes and team members whose skill sets aligned with our most critical and future business needs," the spokesperson added.

At the same time, Pomelo is also raising external funds and has reached out to banks including Morgan Stanley to assist with the efforts, Bloomberg said. Last month, Pomelo bagged approximately US$10 million from existing investors including Jungle Ventures. It has also raised at least US$83 million in total from investors including JD.com and Provident Growth Fund, Bloomberg said.

The company launched in 2013 and has a presence in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand. Jean Thomas, former CMO of Pomelo, recently left to join omnichannel eyewear retailer eyewa. CEO David Jou currently oversees the marketing team. Thomas was previously with Pomelo for three years and joined in 2019 from Lazada Group where he was CMO of RedMart, Lazada Singapore, and head of LiveUp.

Separately, other tech firms in the region have also been witnessing job cuts. Sea Group's Shopee and Garena have been under the spotlight recently for its job cuts amidst the challenging economic outlook. Just last week, Shopee pulled out of Argentina and shifted its local operations in Chile, Colombia, and Mexico to a cross-border model.

Meanwhile, foodpanda also recently confirmed job cuts. While it did not offer more details, the company apologised to impacted colleagues for letting them down.

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