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Indian-origin CEO announces layoffs at $3.4 billion US startup: ‘Difficult day’
Healthtech unicorn Innovaccer, led by Abhinav Shashank, has carried out a fresh round of layoffs as it moves towards an AI-native structure.
Healthtech unicorn Innovaccer has carried out a fresh round of layoffs as it moves towards an AI-native structure. A screenshot of Innovaccer CEO Abhinav Shashank’s email to staff is being widely circulated on social media, in which he confirmed AI as the reason behind the layoffs.
According to an Inc42 report, this is the startup’s third round of layoffs in the four years. Sources told the news outlet that 340 employees in the United States and India will be impacted by the layoffs.
What CEO Abhinav Shashank said
Abhinav Shashank, the Indian-American CEO of Innovaccer, called it a “difficult day” for the company as he informed staff of the layoffs.
“Today is a difficult day for us at Innovaccer, and I want to name that plainly before anything else,” Shashank said in his email with the subject line “Moving Forward as an AI-Native Company”.
“Some of our colleagues will receive a message from the PX team today, informing them that their roles are ending,” he explained. “These are people who shipped products, closed deals, supported customers, and carried this company through hard stretches. What they built is real, and it matters, and I want them to know that directly, not as a footnote.”
The email went on to give details of the compensation package and transition support that laid-off employees could expect.
“To those whose roles are ending: I'm grateful for what you gave to this company. Leaving this way is hard, and I won't minimize that,” wrote Abhinav Shashank.
“We want to do the best we can to support you, and so our PX team will reach out to you today with full details on your separation package, transition support, and next steps. You deserve more than a clean process, and we intend to enable this for you.”
(Also read: Indian-American exec Deedy Das paints bleak picture of Silicon Valley's AI boom: ‘Rich aren’t happy either’)
Who is Abhinav Shashank?
Abhinav Shashank is the co-founder and CEO of American healthcare technology company Innovaccer.
The startup is headquartered in San Francisco, California. It has raised a total funding of $675 million till date, at a valuation of about $3.45 billion.
Born in Lucknow, Shashank studied mechanical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur.
Innovaccer was founded by Abhinav Shashank, Kanav Hasija, and Sandeep Gupta. It started as an academic project associated with Harvard University and the Wharton School.
According to Westbridge Capital, “While working on a big data sharing project at Harvard and Wharton, Shashank and his co-founders developed a way to use those tools to unify patient data across systems to improve clinical, operational and financial outcomes for patients, hospitals, healthcare partners and other stakeholders.”
