International money transfer service WorldRemit has become the latest fintech unicorn to plague its workforce, as plunging valuations force founders to try to survive.
Sky News has learned that Zepz has shed many employees in recent months in a move to reduce its global headcount to around 1,000.
News of the redundancy comes just days after Sky News revealed that Breon Corcoran, CEO of Zepz, quit his job amid fading short-term prospects for the company’s initial public offering.
In a statement, a Zepz spokesperson said: “In February of this year, Zepz management internally shared its strategy to reduce its cost base and seek a stronger degree of financial independence to ensure that we can serve millions of customers around the world sustainably and without dependence on external funding.
“Unfortunately, some of those changes have impacted several roles across the organization and redundancies have been announced.
“These redundancies affect less than 5% of WorldRemit’s role globally.”
The company’s HR team has “implemented a thorough review process to retain as many colleagues as possible in alternative internal roles across the Zepz team,” the statement added.
“WorldRemit today counts more than 1,000 permanent staff positions and continues to recruit exceptional talent around the world under its newly introduced remote-first policy.”
Zepz claimed it was “ahead of similar moves in the broader economy” by cutting its workforce earlier this year, though a spokesman admitted it had not made it public. prior to those actions.
In recent weeks, other major fintechs like Klarna, a buy-now-pay-later platform, have cut their workforces significantly.
Zepz is set to list in the US at a valuation of $6 billion this year.
However, the possibility of an initial public offering (IPO) is decreasing, with the public market rattled by the war in Ukraine and the possibility of a severe global economic downturn, which is believed to be a factors that led to Mr. Corcoran’s withdrawal.
WorldRemit was founded in 2009 and has established partnerships with a large number of international banks and mobile network operators.
Last summer, it raised nearly $300 million in new funding in a Series E round, valuing it at $5 billion, according to a public statement at the time.
In 2020, Zepz’s brands – including Sendwave – activated more than 4.5 million monthly transactions on its platform, generating $338 million in revenue, it said.
