Music, travel and experiences company Pollen has reportedly made a number of redundancies, despite raising $150m (£119m/€140m) in a Series C funding round in April.
According to Music Business Worldwide, Pollen has laid off over 150 members of staff in the UK and the US.
The article cited posts on LinkedIn, including one from Christine Osazuwa, who was made strategy director for Pollen Presents in 2021.
Osazuwa said: “Hello everyone! Unfortunately, Pollen’s laid off 150+ people and I’m one of them. Bummer but hey, that’s #startuplife for you.”
Pollen was founded in 2014 by brothers Callum and Liam Negus-Fancey and curates and delivers experiences using data and customer insights.
The company has already created travel experiences for artists such as Justin Bieber, Duran Duran and J Balvin. Pollen also co-created Neon with J Balvin, an experience to celebrate Latin culture. The start-up has two offerings including Pollen Presents which curates the experiences for customers and Pollen+ which partners with promoters and festivals.
In a statement provided to Music Business Worldwide, Pollen co-founder and chief executive Callum Negus-Fancey, said: “n the current macroeconomic environment, investors want to see growth stage technology companies have a clear path to profitability.
“As part of closing our Series C round, we agreed on a new plan with our investors where we will continue to show strong growth while taking the business to profitability faster through greater focus and cutting our costs by 15 percent.
“This is not unique to Pollen. It’s a trend happening across the technology industry as companies adjust their strategies in order to adapt to these new market realities. We ran a thorough process and there are no more planned changes.”
Image: Christin Hume on Unsplash