Matter Labs to cut 16% of workforce

Matter Labs, the company behind ZKsync, will lay off 16% of its workforce, or 24 employees, in the company’s first headcount reduction since its inception six years ago.

“Unfortunately, this learning curve isn’t always perfectly linear. Organizational complexity has a tendency to accumulate over time […] We are ensuring that we have the right roles and people in place to be effective in accomplishing our mission,” Matter Labs president Nana Murugesan exclusively told Blockworks. 

Murugesan, who joined Matter Labs in April, added that the decision was made to stay “lean.” 

But it was also made as part of Matter Labs’ move into its “next phase” of decentralization and its need to hone down the “right roles that need to be in place.”

Read more: Coinbase exec departs for zkSync development company

“Matter Labs has embraced Ethereum philosophy, including the philosophy of subtraction. We concentrated on a single mission, which is about accelerating the mass adoption of crypto for personal sovereignty and staying lean,” he explained. 

Both Murugesan and CEO Alex Gluchowski clarified the decision was not due to the financial situation of the company, which still plans to carry out “strategic hiring.”

I just sent this message to the Matter Labs team:

===

Today, I’m sharing the hardest change we had to make in the 6-year history of Matter Labs. We are restructuring the organization and parting ways with many amazing team members (~16% of the team). We’ve already reached out…

“Our financial position remains strong, which we believe will enable us to thrive even in a multi-year bear market. The demand for our technology is also steadily growing, with around a dozen chains launching on the Elastic Chain this year,” Murugesan said.

In 2022, Matter Labs raised $200 million in a Series C led by Dragonfly and Blockchain Capital.

“We were always very conscious to not overgrow, not make the typical startup mistakes because we were always focused on the long-term goal,” Gluchowski said. “You might have amazing talent, but it might not be the people who you necessarily need for what you need to accomplish, unfortunately.”

Per Matter Labs, impacted employees will be given “several months” of severance pay, extended healthcare benefits and placement support.

“We remain committed to the mission. Our mission has remained unchanged since day one of Matter Labs. We’ve always been very articulate on advancing the freedom for everyone in the world by accelerating the adoption of crypto technology, public blockchains,” Gluchowski said.

“And we believe that there is the right architecture for [Elastic Chain],” he continued. Hyperchain was renamed Elastic Chain back in July.

“The Elastic Chain is this ultimate vision of connecting the rollups on Ethereum,” Gluchowski added, saying that it remains a priority for Matter Labs, which will continue to build and expand as it continues to see “encouraging” demand.

Updated September 3, 2024 at 10:49 am ET: Added tweet from Matter Labs’ CEO.

Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. Subscribe to the Empire newsletter.

Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. Subscribe to the On the Margin newsletter.

The Lightspeed newsletter is all things Solana, in your inbox, every day. Subscribe to daily Solana news from Jack Kubinec and Jeff Albus.