Event management platform Hopin has announced its third round of layoffs in 2022, reportedly letting a further 17% of staff go, including the VP of product, head of data science and some directors. The virtual events specialists made 29% of its staff redundant earlier in the summer.
The company had raised more than $1bn in 2019 and was valued at $8bn at its peak.
The company has also announced 15 November, alongside the latest layoffs, the ‘transformation’ of Hopin into a multiproduct suite with the upcoming launch of new product Session, the release of StreamYard On-Air and Podcasting.
In statement on the situation, Hopin founder Johnny Boufarhat (pictured) said that in 2023, the company would be “cash-flow positive, growing, and well-capitalised while continuing to build its suite of products focused on helping businesses engage and connect with their customers”.
His statement ran: “I founded Hopin with the vision to connect people in community experiences that power businesses.
“We decided to tackle this vision starting in the virtual events industry in 2019. The pandemic struck and generated massive demand for our solutions. We reacted quickly and hyper-scaled to meet this demand, hiring aggressively to build and deliver world-class experiences for our customers. However, as market conditions shifted in late 2021, we made the difficult decision to scale down some parts of the business, become cash flow positive, and maintain our strong balance sheet, keeping Hopin grounded in a well-capitalised position, so that we could continue moving forward with our plan to be one of the leading builders and acquirers, innovating in customer engagement.
“Throughout 2020 and 2021, we leaned into our broader vision and leveraged significant customer feedback to make strategic investments into adjacent markets, particularly in live video and community engagement. Internally, we referred to this as ‘planting seeds’.
“Despite headwinds of our own missteps, shifting consumer behaviour, impending recession, and tightening budgets, we kept building and these seeds are already growing rapidly. This year, Hopin transforms from a one product company to a multiproduct suite.
“We are uniquely positioned to play a role in the next decade of customer engagement, offering our customers an innovative suite of best-in-class video interaction and community experience products.”
Among the new product updates, Session is a new webinar and meetings product by Hopin, designed to be fun, lightweight, and interactive and is expected to launch in the coming weeks.
StreamYard is also announcing StreamYard On-Air, allowing creators to live stream professional video to their own websites.
Explore all of the above and more on the new hopin.com website: StreamYard, Hopin Events, Streamable, and the two new products coming soon — Session and Project C.
