SecondMarket confirms layoffs
The online private equity market lays off approximately 10 percent of its staff relating to Facebook's upcoming IPO.
Blake Robinson
Blake Robinson got his start in tech as a semi-professional gamer. He was the first Managing Editor of CrunchGear, the former gadgets and electronics arm of TechCrunch. His writings on new and emerging technologies have been featured in ReadWriteWeb, Mashable, TechCrunch, Silicon Alley Insider, paidContent, Uncrate, Conde Nast and Ziff Davis.
Blake splits his time between San Francisco and New York.
Although we previously reported that the layoffs would affect over 20 percent of its staff, SecondMarket now tells us that the number is closer to 10 percent.
While we were unable to obtain a comment yesterday, a SecondMarket representative said this in an official statement:
In a post-Facebook market world, we have decided to eliminate some positions that are no longer core to our company's long-term mission. We reduced our headcount by approximately 10% today, but will continue to hire in select areas. We have no additional planned layoffs and look forward to ramping up our headcount in the future.
The move has clearly been coming for some time. In January, SecondMarket CEO Barry Silbert said, "Facebook is the elephant in the room, no doubt about that. It represents a significant portion of our revenue, so we will have a big hole to fill."
As for now, we're left to wonder whether upcoming SecondMarket plans will be enough to fill the void.