Former fintech ‘unicorn’ Truelayer laid off roughly a quarter of its workforce in a single day as part of an effort to slash costs and become profitable, City AM can reveal.
The London-based firm axed 71 roles at the end of September a week before announcing a $50m funding round that lowered its valuation, according to two people familiar with the matter. One insider said internal communications put the proportion of employees impacted at around 25 per cent.
The most recent job cuts came after a roller-coaster of hiring and attrition for the fintech over the past three years. Its accounts for last year show headcount fell to a monthly average of 346 in 2023, down from 434 in 2022 – when it laid off 10 per cent of staff. That followed a hiring spree which nearly doubled the number of Truelayer’s employees from 231 in 2021.
Truelayer’s valuation fell by roughly 30 per cent in the fundraise, stripping the firm of its more than $1bn ‘unicorn’ price tag acquired in a 2021 round.
Several major European fintechs have accepted lower valuations to secure cash over the last two years as they struggle to achieve the profitability demanded by venture capital investors.
Truelayer, founded in 2016, uses open banking to provide payment solutions for clients including Revolut, Coinbase and Shopify. The tech can enable payments directly between bank accounts, bypassing card networks dominated by Visa and Mastercard.
While Truelayer’s operating losses narrowed last year, they still totalled £54.1m as administrative expenses of £61.9m offset a tripling in revenue and doubling in payment volumes.
Banking 4.0 – „how was the experience for you”
„So many people are coming here to Bucharest, people that I see and interact on linkedin and now I get the change to meet them in person. It was like being to the Football World Cup but this was the World Cup on linkedin in payments and open banking.”
Many more interesting quotes in the video below:
