AskMe, India based online commerce platform has officially shut its operations and all the employees have been laid off. The reason being, Astro Holdings, the investing firm holding 98.5% of the stake in AskMe, has decided not to invest any further or participate in future rounds.
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Askme.com had stopped paying salaries to its employees and making vendor payments because of a cash crunch in the company.
Along with this, it planned to seek capital help from Alibaba and Baidu amount worth of $200 million in accordance with more of 1 billion United States dollars, hence to revive its e-commerce website AskMe Bazaar.com.
Last month, Malaysian billionaire Ananda Krishnan-led Astro Holdings exited AskMe Group, in which it owns 97 percent stake, after a long-drawn battle with minority shareholders.
The whole plan of reviving and reestablishing its websites got worse when Astro Holdings, as well as Helion Ventures, denied to backup the company monetarily. According to some media reports, its primary investor, Astro Holdings defaulted on payments to sellers, own employees and other dues. Astro Holdings’ last cash infusion in the company was around Rs 150 crore only last month.
AskMe had even written to the Ministry of Corporate Affairs and Registrar of Companies to prevent Astro Holdings from leaving without meeting its liabilities and commitments, but it was all in vain.
AskMe has been seeing tumultuous times recently with more than 650 employees who were in the annual salary bracket of Rs 2.5 lakh-INR 6 lakh resigning from the company. To date, Astro has pumped in $119 Mn (INR 800 Cr) in the company according to filings with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs. Despite that, the shutdown has thrown almost 4,000 more – employees, vendors, and other creditors – off gear.
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AskMe.com was launched as a classifieds portal in 2010. In 2012, it came out with Askmebazaar as an online shopping portal focusing on small and medium enterprises. Later in 2013, Getit acquired AskMe from Network18. It also diversified into hyperlocal space with AskMebazaar’s next day delivery capability and in the fintech space with AskMePay’s AskMeFin.
