SoundCloud lays off 40% of staff and closes two offices
Cost-cutting measures to survive independently...
SoundCloud has laid off 40% of its staff and closed the San Francisco and London offices. The remaining 247 employees will be split among the enduring Berlin and New York office spaces.
“By reducing our costs and continuing our revenue growth, we’re on our path to profitability and in control of SoundCloud’s independent future,” remarked Co-founder Alex Ljung to Bloomberg.
Formerly valued at $1 billion (US), SoundCloud saw advanced acquisition talks between Spotify come to a halt this past December. Less than four months later, SoundCloud raised an additional $70 million in debt funding “to strategically grow our technology and personnel resources to fuel our expected 2.5 times year-over-year growth in 2017.”
Ahead of the lay offs, the New York Post had reported French-based streaming platform Deezer was in chats to acquire SoundCloud (or more likely its user base). At the time, both SoundCloud and Deezer refused to comment. No further indication how those talks could have impacted Ljung’s recent decision.
