Friday was a sad day at Culver City-based fintech startup Albert, which laid off at least 20 people from its roughly 250-strong workforce as part of an effort to cut costs.
Albert staffers were informed of the news this morning, sources told dot.LA.
After an announcement went out on a company-wide Slack channel, employees were summoned to an afternoon all-hands Zoom meeting where co-founder and CEO Yinon Ravid explained why the layoffs were taking place.
While Albert did not respond to requests for comment on the layoffs, dot.LA obtained audio recordings of the meeting from employees in attendance. The gathering saw Ravid tell staff that the ongoing economic downturn—which has hit the tech sector hard and led to a slowdown in venture capital funding—has forced the company to cut back on expenses.
“The market environment that we operate in has changed dramatically,” Ravid told staff on the video call. “For the past three years since late 2019, venture capital has flowed quite freely into fintech and financial services, and we’ve benefited from this trend. That trend has changed dramatically this year.”