A lot of things are happening in the fintech world these days. Once unicorn-calibre companies are now struggling to retain their employees amid market turmoil. Bolt is the latest company laying off up to one-third of its staff.
Bolt Is Cutting Employees
It is a bit unfortunate to see the popular check-out payments startup forced to lay off a large portion of its staff. Bolt follows other fintech unicorns in feeling the heat of the tech stock sell-off and bear market, preventing any market relief. However, Bolt recently raised $355 million at a valuation of $11 billion, making many wonder why they would lay off up to one in three employees.
The company informed its staff fia a letter, although that letter was sent out barely 30 minutes before the first employees were let go. In the letter, Bolt chief Maju Kuruvilla explains how market conditions across fintech and tech are changing and pose new threats. More specifically, there is a tremendous crackdown by investors on such stocks and investment options as risk appetite has gone down the drain.
The letter continues by stating:
“In an effort to ensure Bolt owns its own destiny, the leadership team and I have made the decision to secure our financial position, extend our runway, and reach profitability with the money we have already raised. To laser focus on our core business and products, we will be prioritizing our roadmap and making several structural changes. Unfortunately, this includes reducing the size of our workforce and parting ways with some incredibly talented people on our team as of today.”
Laying off one-third of the workforce is a harsh decision but seemingly a necessary one. Moreover, Bolt follows the example set by Klarna, who lad off hundreds of staff members and scale back its business in recent weeks. Growing too quickly continues to pose crucial challenges for fintech startups and will likely continue to do so for some time to come.