Immutable, the unicorn NFT gaming startup, cuts staffing by 6%

Sydney NFT gaming startup Immutable, has cut 20 staff from its team, less than five months after raising $280 million.

CNET’s Jackson Ryan reports that Immutable CEO and cofounder James Ferguson announced the cuts, which account for around 6% of total staffing, at an all-hands meeting held via Google Meet on Monday.

Staff were offered the chance to apply for other jobs in the company, and those who didn’t were told Tuesday that they were being made redundant.

The focus of the redundancies is believed to centre around one of Immutable’s flagship NFT trading card games, Gods Unchained.

The game is believed to have lost more than half its player base in the last three months, falling from 22,000 unique players in April around 10,000, according to games tracking site Cards Unchained.

An Immutable spokesperson told CNET that the business had “a small reorganisation within Gods Unchained to help better enable us to achieve our goal of creating the next generation of web3 games”.

An internal memo sent to staff following the redundancies said the business will be investing in roles so Gods Unchained can scale “to millions of players over the next year.”

Just eight weeks ago, Immutable’s PR firm issued a release saying the business had more than 250 staff globally, and had ambitions to double its headcount over the next year. An Immutable’s spokesperson told CNET that the business now had 280 staff and wanted to hit 360 by the end of 2022.

Ferguson reportedly told the team at this week’s meeting that the business is in “a fantastic position”.

Immutable was valued at A$3.5 billion in March this year following a $280 million Series C raised led by Singapore’s sovereign fund Temasek, with support from Hong Kong-based gaming software firm Animoca Brands, as well as Chinese video gaming giant Tencent, alongside a dozen other investors.

It started the year by partnering with NYSE-listed gaming giant GameStop to develop the world’s largest gaming marketplace for gamers to buy, sell and trade in-game assets.

You can read the CNET story here.