In layoff news, Nigerian healthtech Medsaf has laid off all its full-time employees, about 30 employees.
Last week, sources confirmed to TechCabal that the startup, in March, made the layoff announcement via its chief operating officer Rotimi Lawal. Lawal informed staff that the company was experiencing funding gaps and other dismal payment issues in the operation of its business.
The company—which has raised $3.6 million total since its founding in 2017—has reportedly been facing financial difficulties since mid-2022, and this led to delays in staff and vendor payments.
Unpaid salaries and benefits: Several laid-off employees also confirmed that they hadn’t been paid salaries since December 2022, despite promises from the company that salaries arrears would be paid by April 2023.
In response, Medsaf’s CEO, Vivian Nwakah, blamed the situation on investors reneging on funding commitments. Nwakah also noted that staff had been asked “not to come to work in January…So many of the employees that you are speaking with hardly worked in January and are requesting salaries that are owed to them when they were not actively working for the company,” she said.
Sources also allege financial misappropriation by the company’s management citing a $100,000 project fee that never made it into the company‘s accounts.
Medsaf denies the story: A day after the report, CEO Nwakah took to LinkedIn to tag the report as “full of lies, misinformation and slander”. In the post, Nwakah shares a cease and desist letter to TechCabal where Medsaf—through its lawyers—demanded a retraction of the story, and an apology.
TECHCABAL.
