Steven Galanis, the CEO of the platform that allows fans to buy personalized videos from celebrities, said on his verified account that 87 members of his staff had been laid off. The layoffs were a result of the company needing to balance costs with cash reserves, as first reported by The Information.
Today has been a tough day at the office. I let go of 87 beloved members of the Cameo Fameo.
A number of recently laid off employees spoke to the website. The C-Suite roles of chief product officer, chief people officer, vice president of marketing, and the CTO were impacted. Eight-weeks of base salary were offered to employees.
It was a difficult decision that they had to make, and they didn't come easily to them, according to a former employee. The calendar invite was sent to employees and they received the news via email.
The company, which received funding from a number of companies, including SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Kleiner Perkins, is laying off employees.
Failure is complex, especially in the world of startups
The $1 billion valuation status that many companies hit during the Pandemic seems to be coming with growing pains. Public tech stocks have seen their share prices slashed after a broader decline in the private tech sector. The company was valued at $5 billion in 2021. Roughly 300 people are going to be cut from the staff of Robinhood, a consumer investing and savings company. Workrise and Hopin are two companies that have scaled down their team size.
The impact of the Pandemic on the creator economy and virtual life made Cameo a lot of money at one point. In 2020, the company made a gross revenue of $100 million, up from 4.5 times the year before. As the creator economy scales and consumer tastes shift, the path of Cameo is difficult.
Over the past two years, tech has become more critical than ever for the services it provides to the average human, whether it is empowering an entirely distributed workforce or helping us get access to health services via a screen. The creator economy and joy were brought to us by a light-hearted app that connected fans to celebrities. Tech at large became vulnerable. Tech companies that found product-market fit, and demand beyond their wildest dreams, are the same tech companies that knew their win was dependent on a rare event.
The layoffs mean that the startup needs to rethink how it will build, and hopefully that answer is not at the expense of its own employees.
Current and former employees of Cameo can communicate withNatasha Mascarenhas by e-mail at natasha.m@techcrunch.com or on Signal, a secure messaging app.
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