chepicap.com
Blockfolio confirms the layoff of 9 of their staffs, which raises many questions as the company just received $11.5 million funding a couple of months ago.
The prolonged crypto winter season has taken its toll to another company, Blockfolio.
Following the steps of its senior in the crypto business, such as Bitmain, ShapeShift, and Huobi, the crypto portfolio tracking app just confirmed their decision to downsize.
CEO, Edward Moncado confirmed that the staffs had decreased from 41 to 37 people to The Block, while also mentioning the company’s decision to put their incubator project on the sideline for the time being.
The latter decision had made another 5 staffs being terminated by their affiliate company, DataBlock, which makes a total of 9 persons being laid off.
Moncado put the blame on the bear market as the cause of his company’s restructuration that began end of last year.
The decision to downsize, however, raised many people to question since the company was reported to have successfully secured $11.5 million Series A financing round last October.
According to an anonymous source close with the company, it may be caused by an “unsustainable burn rate”, such as the payroll size, extravagant daily catered-lunches, and a lavish party at the Shangri-La Hotel.
The source also mentioned about the seven-person trip to Prague when the Blockfolio 2.0 launched was over the top.
“We didn’t need 40 people. Look at delta.app [a competitor] – they have like a dozen people. Why did Blockfolio need to grow like that?” the source added.
Moncado, on the other hand, said that the company had been very frugal, when it comes to spending.
The Prague trip, in his defense, was crucial to develop relationships in the ecosystem, quoting his statement, “We’ve taken proactive steps to ensure we’d make it through any market.”
He also said that Blockfolio had limited their marketing cost significantly and claimed that they had always paid market-rate salaries.
Moreover, on their monetization plan, he said the company hadn’t decided yet, although it “would probably [come from] ads at some point.”
Aside from the “bad news”, their token teams communication platform, Signal is said to receive positive responses.
“Signal has been a tremendous success. It’s been enthusiastically embraced by all the token team projects. It was the first of its kind. Now you’re starting to see some copycats, but it validates the product,” Moncado said.
Closing his statement, the CEO said they’re now focusing on bringing the app forward through development and monetization.
Read more:
Blockfolio raises $11.5 million with exchanges BitMEX and Huobi as investors
Bitmain halts development of its new mega mining facility being built in Texas
ShapeShift.io announces in Medium blog it has laid off 37 employees