Amount, a fintech that reached unicorn status last year, has laid off 18% of its workforce.
The exact number of how many people were affected is not known, but when TechCrunch reported on its last raise in May of 2021, the company said that it had 400 employees. If that is still the case today, then about 72 people were let go. When contacted, the company confirmed that the 18% figure was correct but did not specify the exact number. In a written statement, CEO Adam Hughes said:
Due to the current macro-economic environment, we have decided to take some proactive adjustments to ensure Amount’s ability to thrive for years to come. We believe these actions are the prudent thing to do for the long-term health of the company and remain extremely excited about the future.
Amount was spun out of Avant — an online lender that has raised over $600 million in equity — in January of 2020 to provide enterprise software built specifically for the banking industry. It partners with banks and financial institutions to “rapidly digitize their financial infrastructure and compete in the retail lending and buy now, pay later sectors,” Hughes told TechCrunch last year when the company announced it had raised $99 million in a Series D funding round at a valuation of just over $1 billion. In total, Amount has raised $243 million to date. Investors include WestCap and Goldman Sachs, among others.
In simple terms, Amount’s mission is to help financial institutions “go digital in months — not years” and thus, better compete with fintech rivals. The company formed just before the pandemic hit, after which demand for the type of technology Amount had developed increased exponentially, the company said.
At the time of that last raise, Hughes told TechCrunch that Amount’s clients included financial institutions collectively managing nearly $2 trillion in U.S. assets and servicing more than 50 million U.S. customers.
Hughes declined to provide any details regarding the company’s financials, saying only that Amount “performed well” as a standalone company in 2020 and that the company was expecting “significant” year-over-year revenue growth in 2021. He did say that HSBC, TD Bank, Regions, Banco Popular and Avant (of course) were among the 10 banks that used Amount’s technology in an effort to simplify their transition to digital financial services.
This article was updated post-publication to include a statement from the company.
My weekly fintech newsletter, The Interchange, launched on May 1! Sign up here to get it in your inbox.