SoundHound, the company that once said it wanted to dominate the AI voice market, has cut roughly half its workforce. According to , the company laid off about 200 employees last week as part of a company-wide restructuring. Yes by gizmodo the reports are accurate, the mass layoffs would mark the second downsizing SoundHound has undertaken in less than a year. In November, the company allegedly . Before the first round of cuts, SoundHound employed approximately 450 people.
A trio of former employees who spoke with gizmodo he described a “regrettable” severance package contingent on the company raising more money. They claim that the package does not include medical care and only two weeks of compensation. The company did not immediately respond to Engadget’s request for comment. SoundCloud went public through a special purpose acquisition company in early 2022. According to data from , the firm has raised more than $300 million to date. SoundHound’s clients include Pandora, Mercedes-Benz and Snap.
In an email obtained by gizmodoSoundHound CEO and co-founder Keyvan Mohajer blamed the layoffs on recent macroeconomic conditions. “When we set course in early 2021 to go public, high-tech companies like SoundHound were darlings of the investment community. Companies that could achieve high growth, despite high costs, were seen as engines of a future economy,” he wrote. “However, as a result of changing economic conditions, including high interest rates, rising inflation and recession fears, companies with our profile have become much less desirable.” Mohajer reportedly added that investors “were worried” that SoundHound “didn’t have the heart to let their people go.”
In recent months, mass layoffs have been commonplace at many tech companies. In early November, Facebook parent Meta went out of business, a move that caused more than 11,000 people to lose their jobs. Most recently, Amazon expanded the scope of the layoffs across the company to affect more than 18,000 employees.
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