Bloomberg Línea — Brazilian unicorn Hotmart, a platform that enables creators to monetize online businesses, said it will cut 12% of its workforce - 227 people - and restructure the company onto “a path of greater operational maturity and in an even more favorable strategic position for the future.”
Projects and teams will have see activities discontinued, while others will shrink in scope, focus on goals and align with a new strategy, the company’s CEO João Pedro Resende said in a letter to employees Thursday.
“The reality is that the growth we expected in the post-pandemic period, and the internal expansion of the operation, did not happen at the same pace. In other words, operational efficiency has dropped. I take full responsibility for that.”
Hotmart says it will continue with 1,700 employees, up from 1,300 a year earlier, “with an operation that remains healthy, profitable and growing. With that, I’m sure we’ll be ready to allocate resources more efficiently,” added Resende.
The creator economy-focused unicorn has 12 offices around the world, in the Netherlands, the US, Brazil, Spain, Mexico, Colombia and France. In 2020, with help from its investors, it acquired New York-based firm Teachable.
Hotmart raised $130 million last year from growth equity firm TCV, and which has also backed Netflix and Airbnb, and guided companies to more than 125 stock listings.
Alkeon Capital, Koolen & Partners, General Atlantic and Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC are also investors in the privately-held startup, which disclosed it had achieved a $1 billion valuation. In 2021, Reuters reported Hotmart had hired banks for a planned IPO expected to raise roughly $500 million, but it postponed its plans as the public offering window closed.
While last year Latin American startups raised a record $16.3 billion from venture capital, now funding has fallen to $6.4 billion up to third quarter due to risk aversion, according to CB Insights data.
A lack of funding for late-stage startups impacts further pre-IPO startups and their valuations, which, some venture capital funds told Bloomberg Línea, are “unsustainable”.
Hotmart joins the list of Latin American unicorns such as Loggi, Clara, Olist, Betterfly, Ebanx, Mercado Bitcoin, Kavak, Vtex, Bitso, Facily, Loft, Creditas and QuintoAndar that have cut staff this year.