100 more employees quit Trell, platform says paid all creators

Lifestyle social commerce platform Trell has seen another wave of employee exodus as it struggles to pay creators in the country. The company, however, on Monday claimed it has paid all its creators.

At least 100 more employees have left the video commerce platform as several creators and influencers wait for their dues to be cleared, sources told IANS on Monday.

The Instagram community page of Trell was full of complaints from the creators who requested the company to clear their pending payments.

"How about you clear the pending payments of your creators," one such affected creator wrote.

Others said Trell is clearing dues of popular creators with large fan following while ignoring small influencers.

In a statement to IANS, the platform said it "has paid all its creators as per our contractual agreements with them".

"A certain percentage of creators work via their agencies. Trell has cleared payments with agencies as well, however it has come to our notice that certain agencies have been delaying payments," the live social commerce platform said.

While that is an "agency-creators discrepancy, we have been actively working with them to ensure our creators are taken care of and payments are cleared to them at the earliest possible," it added.

The platform recently asked more than 300 employees to go as it had to do "some right-sizing within the firm".

Trell said in the statement that in the last two-three months "100 more people have either voluntarily left or been laid off".

"We are aimed at working towards achieving operational profitability in the next few months to come and we have been continually hiring for important roles across all teams," the startup told IANS.

In April, Trell was probed by a forensic team from EY India over financial irregularities amid allegations that its founders siphoned off money.

The audit firm's review last month alleged serious financial irregularities at the company. The founders -- Pulkit Agrawal, Bimal Kartheek Rebba, and Arun Lodhi -- were investigated by the forensic team of EY India.

The allegations also stalled Trell's $100 million funding round.

In July last year, Trell raised $45 million in a Series B round led by financial group Mirae Asset, H&M Group and co-led by LB Investments.

With the closing of the Series B round, Trell had raised $62 million.

Previous investors, along with KTB Network, Samsung Ventures, and Fosun RZ Capital also participated in the Series B round.

In August 2020, Trell launched its social commerce section on the app, enabling users to watch personalised product recommendations across beauty, personal care and wellness categories that they can buy from within the app.