Singapore-based blockchain platform Nansen is laying off 30% of its employees

Singapore-based blockchain analytics platform Nansen announced on Wednesday that it will lay off 30% of its team to focus on sustainable growth after a “brutal” year for crypto markets.

In a Twitter post, the company’s CEO Alex Svanevik said there are two reasons for the decision to reduce the number of employees. First, the company scaled up the team on the back of breakneck growth in the early years of operations, which led to the organization “taking on surface that is not part of Nansen’s core strategy”.

This week we announced the extremely difficult decision to downsize the Nansen team.

I am endlessly grateful for the incredible people we part ways with. They will go on to achieve great things and we will make sure they have a soft landing, with farewells and support.

— Alex Svanevik 🐧 (@ASvanevik) 30 May 2023

Second, 2022 was a brutal year for crypto markets. Although the company has seen a diversification of income via corporate and institutional customers last year, the cost base is too high in relation to where the company is today.

“We have several years of runway, but our priority is to build a sustainable business,” Svanevik wrote. “A reduction of 30% of our team is significant. But we believe we must make organizational changes to create the right conditions for those who live with us.”

In 2021, Nansen raised $75 million in a series B round led by American venture capital firm Accel.

Other prominent investors who participated included Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC, US investment firm Tiger Global, Siam Commercial Bank’s (SCB) venture arm SCB 10X, and existing investor a16z. Crypto-specific investors such as L1 Digital and Folius Ventures also joined the round.

Founded in 2020, Nansen analyzes chain data, wallet tags and entities on blockchains including Ethereum, Polygon, Binance Smart Chain, Fantom, Avalanche and Celo. It also tracks decentralized finance (DeFi) projects and non-fungible token (NFT) trades. Clients – DeFiance Capital, Genesis Block Ventures, Polygon and the team behind Axie Infinity, to name a few – use Nansen’s services to make informed decisions.

Earlier this year, cryptocurrency firm Genesis cut 30% of its workforce—its second round of layoffs in less than six months. Crypto exchange Huobi also laid off around 20% of its staff in the latest sign of sharp cost-cutting in the industry as investor interest in digital assets waned.