Clear, a venture capital backed online taxation and fintech software provider, has laid off around 25%, or 150-200 of its workforce, two people aware of the development told The Head and Tale.

More than half of the laid off employees were from the software development engineering team, the two people cited above said. Senior software development engineers from the team as well as newly joined mid-level members in the team were mostly affected by this layoff, one of the persons cited above said, while a bunch of freshers who had been hired from the IITs recently were also let go.

Severance package was given to all the impacted staff. While the package was considered to be "good enough" for senior members, the juniors found it "okay".

The people cited above said that the layoff was part of the company's internal restructuring process.

"We are dissolving old teams and building new teams," was the reason given to them, according to one of the persons cited above.

Responding to The Head and Tales query, Clear (formerly ClearTax) spokesperson said: "We recently undertook a broader strategic organisational restructuring, impacting around 16% of our workforce, including a small number of early-career employees. This was a tough decision, and we are deeply grateful to every individual affected for their contributions. To support them, we have extended enhanced severance packages, continued health insurance, and active outplacement assistance through outreach to industry partners." 

"As Clear evolves, certain roles have been impacted by changing business needs, and we are reshaping teams to enhance agility and future-readiness. We remain financially strong and continue to scale globally - serving CFO offices across India, the UAE, Singapore, France, Belgium, and beyond - with the goal of building a trusted, global platform for compliance, finance automation, and business intelligence," the spokesperson added.

Earlier in September 2022, Clear had laid off around 190-200 employees, which represented about 20% of its workforce amid severe liquidity squeeze in the system that also saw other tech startups such as Byju's, Unacademy, Udaan and PayU fire a section of its staff then.

Clear had last raised $75 million in its Series C funding round led by Kora Capital in 2021. Global fintech Stripe, Alua Capital and Think Investments participated in the funding round. Later in January 2022, it raised an undisclosed amount from Robinhood's Aparna Chennapragada and others.

In recent times fear of job losses have mounted across sectors with the advent of artificial intelligence (AI) and the fierce pace it is spreading.

In July, IT giant TCS shocked the industry after it said it is laying off over 12,000 employees from its global workforce. The company was also likely to freeze salary hikes for employees that remain.

Last month, global tech giant Microsoft also said it is laying off 9,000, or 4% of its workforce, its biggest since it laid off 10,000 workers in 2023. Hundreds of layoffs have also been reported at other tech giants such as Google and Meta.