Sydney NFT gaming startup Immutable has cut 20 employees from its team less than five months after the raise $280 million.
CNET’s Jackson Ryan reports that Immutable CEO and co-founder James Ferguson announced the cuts, which account for about 6% of the total workforce, at a meeting held Monday via Google Meet.
Employees were given the chance to apply for other jobs in the company, and those who didn’t were told on Tuesday they were being fired.
The focus of the layoffs is believed to center around one of Immutable’s flagship NFT trading card games, Gods Unchained.
The game is believed to have lost more than half of its player base in the past three months, from 22,000 unique players in April around 10,000, according to games tracking site Cards Unchained.
An unchanging spokesperson told CNET that the company had “a minor reorganization within Gods Unchained to better enable us to achieve our goal of creating the next generation of web3 games.”
An internal memo sent to staff in response to the layoffs said the company will invest in roles so that Gods Unchained can scale to millions of players over the next year.
Just eight weeks ago, Immutable’s PR agency released a press release stating that the company had more than 250 employees worldwide and had ambitions to double its workforce in the coming year. An Immutable spokesperson told CNET that the company now had 280 employees and aims to reach 360 by the end of 2022.
Ferguson reportedly told the team at this week’s meeting that the company is in a “fantastic position”.
Immutable was valued at A$3.5 billion in March this year after a $280 million Series C was raised led by Singapore’s sovereign fund Temasek, with support from Hong Kong-based gaming software company Animoca Brands, as well as China’s video game giant Tencent, alongside a dozen other investors.
It kicked off the year by partnering with NYSE-listed gaming giant GameStop to develop the world’s largest gaming marketplace where gamers can buy, sell and trade in-game assets.
You can read the CNET story here.