IPO-bound Acko cuts 5% workforce as AI shift reshapes roles

The job cuts come alongside the departure of chief marketing officer Ashish Mishra, who spent nearly five-and-a-half years at Acko after joining in August 2020. Mishra is currently serving his notice period and is expected to be succeeded by Nitin Khanna, who has spent over seven years at the company across marketing roles, the people added.

The company is in the middle of a transition that has led to job cuts across roles and functions. “AI has fundamentally redesigned how the company will operate. So there are certain roles which worked in the previous version of the organisation that don’t exist anymore,” one of the people cited above said.

This marks the company’s second round of layoffs. During the covid-19 pandemic, Acko had let go of 45–50 employees from its then 480–500-strong workforce, as it sought to cut costs and extend its runway, Entrackr reported at the time.

Acko’s push to be AI-ready comes as it prepares for a $300–400 million initial public offering (IPO) targeted in FY27. Mint reported in December that the company is in early discussions with bankers to gauge market interest. The proposed issue is expected to include a mix of fresh capital and secondary share sales by existing investors.

If it goes as planned, Acko will join the growing list of companies including Meesho, Pine Labs, Groww, PhysicsWallah, Ather Energy, Bluestone, Urban Company and Lenskart, that went public in the last year.

Founded in 2016 by Varun Dua and Ruchi Deepak, Acko has so far raised over $450 million from investors including Amazon.com Inc., Accel, Elevation Capital, Munich Re Ventures, Catamaran Ventures, RPS Ventures, Intact Ventures and SAIF Partners, as well as M.S. Dhoni (through his family office), Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal and former CaratLane chief executive Mithun Sacheti.

Over the past nine years, the insurer claims to have served more than 78 million customers and issued over a billion policies. It started with auto insurance in 2016 and has since expanded into health insurance, aiming to cover the full customer journey—from medical tests to hospital claims. As part of that push, it acquired Better Capital-backed chronic-care startup OneCare in 2024 and has been expanding its hospital and clinic network.

Its group health insurance product has signed up over 200 companies, including Swiggy, Razorpay and Cred. In FY25, Acko trimmed its consolidated net loss to ₹424 crore from ₹667 crore a year earlier, while operating revenue rose to ₹2,836 crore from ₹2,106 crore.

Salman SH

Salman S.H. is an Assistant Editor with Mint in Bengaluru, where he covers startups, venture capital, and the broader internet economy. Over the course of more than a decade in journalism and strategic communications, he has built deep reporting expertise across technology, fintech, consumer internet, digital platforms, and the business models shaping India’s new economy. At Mint, he tracks the companies, investors, and policy developments influencing how technology is built, funded, and scaled in India.His reporting covers venture capital, startup strategy, fintech, edtech, funding trends, and the internet economy. He writes about how startups raise money, grow their businesses, respond to regulation, and adapt to changes in technology and policy. His work also looks at the impact of policy decisions on startups and investors, and tracks the sectors, founders, and firms shaping India’s digital economy.Before Mint, Salman worked across several respected newsrooms, including The Economic Times, Financial Express, The Ken, Inc42, and The Core. He has also worked in strategic communications, leading PR strategy and media outreach for clients in education, online learning, consumer internet, and consulting. That combination of newsroom and communications experience gives him a clear understanding of how business stories are reported, shaped, and understood.

Priyamvada C

Priyamvada is a Mumbai-based business journalist at Mint. She writes about the public and private markets with a key focus on venture capital, private equity, M&As and private credit. Her coverage also spans startups and emerging businesses.Over the last two years, she has uncovered some of the largest deals and interviewed important decision-makers from India’s investment ecosystem. She likes to dabble across different formats like long forms and explainers. Her work has been consistently displayed on the publication's deals page, and she has also written multiple front-page stories.Prior to joining Mint in 2024, she worked out of Reuters’ Bengaluru bureau where she extensively covered the travel, transportation, and logistics industries. Across both her stints, Priyamvada has displayed rigour for breaking news and analyzing interesting data-driven trends. She holds a postgraduate diploma from the Asian College of Journalism's Bloomberg programme. In her free time, she enjoys reading books and trying out different cuisines. She is keen to delve deeper into the various sectors she covers and is always up for a chat. You can reach out to her at priyamvada.c@livemint.com.