South Korean agtech startup Green Labs, which raised a $140 million (170 billion won) Series C in January last year, is cutting a significant number of jobs.
People familiar with the matter confirmed to TechCrunch earlier rumors in local media that layoffs would occur.
Green Labs, which now has more than 650 employees, is laying off some of its employees as part of a restructuring after doubling its workforce following a Series C funding round. TechCrunch reports that Green Labs had 320 employees in January 2022.
We don’t have exact figures on how many employees Green Labs plans to lay off. The company did not immediately respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment; We will update the story as and when.
In addition to the layoffs, the startup is also paving the way to raise another round of funding. As the outfit grew beyond capacity, it ran out of money, people familiar with the matter said.
In the year Founded in 2017 by Sanghoon Shin, Scott Sungwoo Choi and Luke Donghyun Ahn, the two founders Choi and Ahn have already left the startup and Shin is now leading the company.
Green Labs, whose pre-funding valuation was approximately $700 million, has received Series C funding from BRV Capital Management, Skylake Incuvest and SK Square to accelerate the global expansion of its core business idea of building sustainable solutions to address global food supply chain issues. Green Labs has raised a total of $170 million since its inception.
The startup has built smart agriculture software and hardware for farmers to digitize the value chain of the agriculture industry from crop production to distribution. The startup says Green Labs’ B2C app, Farm Morning, is used by more than half a million farmers. Green Labs says the app takes farm data and then uses artificial intelligence to provide insights into crop life cycles. Its B2B marketplace, Sinsun Market, provides home channels for more than 10,000 corporate buyers.
