Dunzo further delays salary of employees, payments held back from July

Dunzo, a quick commerce start-up backed by Reliance and Google, has further delayed the salaries of its employees, Business Today has learned. It is worth noting that the payment due to employees has been held back since July.

The company sent an email to its employees which read, “We sincerely apologize for this delay. Ensuring that you receive your due compensation as early as possible is our top priority. Please be assured that we are doing everything to make this happen, and we are confident that there will be no further delays after this.”

Business Today had earlier reported that Dunzo had capped the salary of its employees at Rs 75,000 and had held back the rest promising the payment at a future date. The company had first promised to pay back on July 20. After failing to do so, they said they would pay all dues by August 30.

The quick commerce company has now asked for an extension of five days and claim that they would clear all dues by September 4.

The company’s email read, “Please note that pending salaries for the months of June and July, due to be paid on September 4, will be paid in the first week of October. You will receive the salary dues along with a 12 percent p.a. interest, which will now be calculated for an additional month."

The quick commerce start-up has been struggling due to a severe cash crunch. The company is expected to pay Rs 11 crore in dues to seven companies, who have all sent the quick commerce company legal notices due to delays in payment, Moneycontrol reported. To cut costs, the company has let go of 500 employees in the past year.

It is backed by Reliance, Google, Lightrock, Lightbox, Blume Ventures and several others. It was valued around $ 800 million in its last valuation round.

Moreover, Reliance is the largest shareholder with a 25.8 per cent stake in the quick commerce startup, followed by Google, which has a 19 per cent ownership in the company, as per data from Tracxn.