Circles.Life co-founder steps back after months of tumult: Sources

SINGAPORE – The co-founder of digital telecoms provider Circles.Life is stepping down from the company’s management team, part of an internal staffing overhaul aimed at shedding costs after years of attempts to take on Singapore’s incumbent services.

Mr Abhishek Gupta, who helped build the business over the past seven years, will now take on a non-executive role, and it is unclear what his future duties include, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified as the information is private.

While Mr Gupta never formally adopted the chief executive officer title, he was regarded as the public face of a company that once sought to take on Singtel in Singapore, and oversaw its business-facing arm Circles X. Co-founder Rameez Ansar was identified as CEO at an industry event in June. Mr Gupta’s shift, which has not been previously reported, underscores the upheaval under way at a start-up that once harboured ambitions of disrupting the staid, carefully controlled Singaporean wireless industry.

In a statement on Saturday, the start-up denied that Mr Gupta’s role had been reduced. 

“Abhishek is not taking on a non-executive role or a non-executive director role. He remains a co-founder with the same title and is strongly vested in the business,” a spokesman said in the e-mailed statement.

The management reshuffle is part of a new project titled “Brave New World”, or a move by top investors to give Mr Ansar 180 days to turn the company around, the sources said. Under the project, announced to staff in early May, Circles has steadily cut jobs across departments, including human resources, engineering, marketing and Circles X, according to the sources. Some other key executives, including the chief growth officer, have left the company, according to an internal memo reviewed by Bloomberg News.

Circles, which was launched in 2016, offers digital mobile services including voice, data, roaming and international calls. Hailed as a disruptor to the traditional telco market, it initially grabbed market share from incumbents like Singtel, StarHub and M1 by offering customers lower prices, cheaper data, no-contract plans and the freedom to manage their own mobile plans digitally.

Early on, it splashed out on bold marketing campaigns, mocking established rivals for their long-term contracts, poor customer service and expensive data options. The company said it reached 5 per cent market share in Singapore in 2019 and also has operations in Taiwan, Indonesia and Japan.

Global private equity firm Warburg Pincus said it made a “substantial investment” in Circles in 2020, without disclosing the financial terms.

Competitors soon slashed their prices and launched similar mobile plans to Circles’, and several have upgraded their digital offerings to allow customers to manage their accounts through an app. As it struggled to tackle the intensifying competition, Circles tried to diversify by launching products including an events app which allowed users to book movie tickets, and a software platform to allow players to launch their own digital telco.

South-east Asian Internet companies are facing growing pressure from investors to slash expenses and turn profitable amid an uncertain macroeconomic climate. Singapore’s Grab and Sea have

eliminated thousands of jobs,

fighting to reduce costs and win back investors in a climate where growth is potentially slowing amid a higher rate of inflation and rising interest rates. BLOOMBERG