Dapper Labs has laid off 51 employees in its third round in less than a year. Dapper Labs CEO Roham Gharegozlou highlighted that the staff laid off constituted both full-time staff and C1 contractors. Despite the cuts, the CEO has emphasized that both the company and Flow, its blockchain, are adequately capitalized.
Gharegozlou said the decision was hard since amazing “colleagues and friends” were affected. He added that it was a necessary step and the right thing to do to ensure the company remains lean and efficient to do the right thing for their fans and promote the growth of their community in the healthiest methods possible.
Dapper Labs’ third cut in 9 months
Dapper Labs has been cutting down on its employees for the last year. According to Growjo.com figures, its most recent cut was 12% of the total company’s staff. In February this year, the company cut down its staff by 20% while in November 2022, it made a 22% cut in employees.
The move comes amid a larger decline in NFT markets. NFT markets were “out of balance” and dominated by sellers in April. In addition, in recent months, the floor prices of several of the big blue-chip collections have fallen dramatically.
When Dapper Labs secured capital in September 2021, it was valued at $7.6 billion thanks to the early success of NBA Top Shot NFTs. According to CryptoSlam data, NBA Top Shot formerly produced sales revenues of $224 million at its peak in February 2021, as opposed to merely $1.93 million in revenues last month.
Web3 firms are restructuring
Given the current situation of Web3 and socioeconomic climate, sports and NFT analyst “Clegainz” maintains that the Dapper Labs move wasn’t a major surprise. They continued, on Twitter, saying that Dapper Labs was not the only Web3 business currently experiencing this.
SuperRare, an NFT marketplace, laid off 30% of its employees in January 2023. The company claimed that it saw quick expansion when the NFT industry was previously thriving and that it over-hired to make up for it. Additionally, by reducing its workforce, SuperRare was able to “rightsize” its business and continue to provide support for the collector and artist communities.
OpenSea co-founder and CEO Devin Finzer said in July 2022 that the NFT marketplace was letting go of around 20% of its staff. In a note to the workers, Finzer said that the firm needed to get ready for the potential of a prolonged slump since they had entered an unprecedented period of crypto winter and widespread macroeconomic volatility. According to Finzer, the firm is now able to withstand up to five years of difficult economic times at OpenSea’s present volume without having to make any more layoffs.
