Social App IRL Lays Off 25% of Team, Enough Cash to Last Into 2024

TECH CRUNCH - IRL has just announced it's laying off 25% of its team, or ~25 people, citing market dynamics. The cut comes around a year after the startup landed a $170M SoftBank-led Series C and hit unicorn status. IRL CEO and co-founder Abraham Shafi wrote that IRL has "more than enough cash to last well into 2024." Over the last year, the startup increased its headcount by 3.5 times, but Shafi noted that WhatsApp was able to grow to 450M users with a team of 55. This suggests that the workforce reduction was less about trying to reduce runway and more about right-sizing the team after a period of overhiring. IRL is focused on being an engineering-led organization, suggesting that the layoffs impacted other teams.