StumbleUpon Reportedly Lays Off ‘Dozens’

StumbleUpon is reportedly reducing its staff from close to 100 employees to about 30. That is according to VentureBeat, which cites an anonymous source. Jordan Novet reports: The company had just unde...
StumbleUpon Reportedly Lays Off ‘Dozens’
Written by Chris Crum
  • StumbleUpon is reportedly reducing its staff from close to 100 employees to about 30. That is according to VentureBeat, which cites an anonymous source.

    Jordan Novet reports:

    The company had just under 100 employees and will only have around 30 by the end of this week, a source familiar with the matter told VentureBeat. Last week employees were told in individual meetings that they would be laid off, and now those employees are finishing up their work, the source said, adding that the company is preserving people in engineering and sales roles.

    “It’s been tough for StumbleUpon to compete,” the source told VentureBeat. “It predates a lot of the social networks. It certainly had its heyday when they had their largest user base.”

    The layoffs reportedly come after the company failed to secure additional funding.

    Back in early 2013, the company reduced its staff by 30% moving from 110 employees to 75, though it was hiring again soon after, adding engineer talent. Later that year, the company announced profitability, sharing its first revenue numbers. Right after that it made its first acquisition with 5by. Last year, StumbleUpon expanded its native ad sales team.

    We’ve reached out to sources at StumbleUpon for confirmation and further comment, and will update accordingly.

    Earlier this year, Shareaholic reported increases in StumbleUpon traffic referrals to websites after previous decreases. At the time, we had a conversation with CEO Mark Bartels, which you can read here.

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