SmartNews, a Tokyo-headquartered news aggregation website and app valued at $2 billion as of 2021, today announced a 40% reduction of its U.S. and China workforce, or around 120 people, according to sources familiar with the company’s plans. The news was announced on Thursday in an All-Hands meeting attended this evening by SmartNews staff. The company confirmed the layoffs to TechCrunch, saying the “current economic conditions” were to blame.
Impacted roles in the U.S. and China include those in engineering, product, and data science, we understand. SmartNews employees in Japan, meanwhile, will soon undergo a “voluntary departure program,” but they weren’t yet offered specifics about what that will entail. Laid-off employees will be offered standard severance packages and benefits. In the meeting, staff were told they’d get an email within 15 minutes if they were a …
