Montreal Tech Watch is reporting that Montreal startup Xtranormal has cut 50% of their staff.
Xtranormal which launched with much fanfare a little over a month ago has laid off today 36, which is half of its staff.
Xtranormal invested heavily in research & development efforts in the past year, understandable since they were tackling a new challenge, user-produced videos, but this mass layoff shows lack of planning, focus & guidance from its CEO & founder, Richard Szalwinski, who also did previously Discreet Logic. Many at xtranormal expected him to lead product development but he didn’t. As sources of money & funding disappear, Xtranormal is now forced to downsize its staff. I guess xtranormal’s investors are defaulting on committed payments due to markets crashing left & right, although you have to take that with a grain of salt.
Layoffs are hard times for a company, with remaining staff having lower morale. My thoughts goes to existing and ex-employees, hoping they’ll bounce back.
Xtranormal was #12 on the Montreal Startup Index for November.
xtranormal’s mission is to bring movie-making to the people. Everyone watches movies and we believe everyone can make movies. Movie-making, short... [more]
Rob Lewis
Rob is the President of Techvibes Media Inc. and Editor-in-Chief of Techvibes.com.
His diverse background includes stints in International Trade Finance, Web Development, and Enterprise Software and he is a graduate of the University of British Columbia, British Columbia Institute of Technology, and Simon Fraser University.
When not blogging on...[more]
