Lazerpay To Lay Off Staff As Investor Withdraws: As the economic crisis intensifies, the Nigerian startup for cryptocurrency payments, Lazerpay, announced it will let go of an unannounced number of its employees.
The business also admitted that while junior employees’ salaries were being reduced, its management team had been working without pay for months.
The downsizing was unavoidable because the company’s attempt to seek seed funding was unsuccessful due to the withdrawal of its key investor.
Similar to Quidax, another Nigerian cryptocurrency business that fired 25% of its employees last week. Lazerpay insisted that FTX’s demise had nothing to do with its troubles.
Failed seed round: Lazerpay CEO Emmanuel Njoku was quoted as saying the following in a statement below:
- “We started financing our seed round earlier this year and investors expressed interest. Unfortunately, due to market conditions and a disagreement over the terms, our intended lead investor quickly withdrew. This hindered us from finishing this round. Our management team stopped taking a salary in an effort to extend our runway. And our staff gladly stayed on board with a wage cut over the past few months.
- “Despite these sacrifices, in addition to changing our fundraising strategy and making the needed adjustments in the operations of the business. We are still faced with a hard decision to downsize and part ways with some incredibly talented members of our team.
- This has nothing to do with the FTX crash. Lazerpay is unaffected because it had no investments in FTX. The money belonging to our customers is secure, and the business will carry on processing payments as usual. We are steadfast in our commitment to helping businesses expand internationally.
Lazerpay’s primary backer was Nestcoin, a Nigerian cryptocurrency investment company focusing on developing and funding crypto-related companies, according to research. In November of last year, Nestcoin stated that it had invested an undisclosed sum in Lazerpay.
Following the loss of company assets (cash and stablecoins) due to the FTX crash, Nestcoin announced layoffs earlier this month.
