Fintech Amount, valued at $ 1 billion last year, lays off 18% of employees – TechCrunch

Amount, a fintech like reached unicorn status last year, has laid off 18% of the workforce.

The exact number of people affected is not known, but when TechCrunch reported its latest increase in May 2021, the company said it had 400 employees. If that is still the case today, about 72 people were released. When contacted, the company confirmed that the figure of 18% was correct, but did not specify the exact figure. In a written statement, CEO Adam Hughes said:

Due to the current macroeconomic environment, we have decided to make some proactive adjustments to ensure that Amount can thrive in the years to come. We believe that these actions are the sensible thing to do for the company’s long-term health and are still extremely excited about the future.

Amount was spun out of Avant – an online lender that has raised over $ 600 million in equity – in January 2020 to offer enterprise software built specifically for the banking industry. It is partnering with banks and financial institutions to “quickly digitize their financial infrastructure and compete in retail lending and buy now, pay later,” Hughes told TechCrunch last year when the company announced it had raised $ 99 million in a Series D funding round to a value of just over $ 1 billion. In total, Amount has raised $ 243 million to date. Investors include WestCap and Goldman Sachs, among others.

Simply put, Amount’s task is to help financial institutions “go digital in months – not years” and thus better compete with fintech rivals. The company was formed just before the pandemic hit, after which the demand for the type of technology the amount had developed increased exponentially, the company said.

At the time of the latest increase, Hughes told TechCrunch that Amount’s customers included financial institutions that collectively manage nearly $ 2 trillion in US assets and serve more than 50 million US customers.

Hughes declined to give any details regarding the company’s finances, saying only that Amount “performed well” as an independent company in 2020 and that the company expected “significant” year-over-year revenue growth in 2021. He said that HSBC, TD Bank, Regions , Banco Popular and Avant (of course) were among the 10 banks that used Amount’s technology in an effort to simplify the transition to digital financial services.

This article was updated after publication to include a statement from the company.

My weekly fintech newsletter, The Interchange, was launched on May 1st! Sign up here to get it in your inbox.