Wattpad, a Toronto-based storytelling platform owned by Naver’s Webtoon Leisure, performed one other spherical of layoffs earlier this month.
Wattpad has minimize round 30 jobs, or roughly 15% of its workforce, a supply acquainted with the state of affairs instructed TechCrunch. In accordance with native media retailers, together with The Korea Financial Every day, the minimize impacted about 30 staff. A spokesperson for Wattpad didn’t reply to a request for remark forward of publication.
The transfer is a part of the corporate’s restructuring plan geared toward lowering prices as its LA-based dad or mum firm seeks to enhance its funds forward of an preliminary public providing within the U.S. as early as 2025, the supply stated. Webtoon Leisure has three storytelling subsidiaries: Wattpad in Toronto, Naver Webtoon in Seoul and Line Digital Frontier in Tokyo.
That is the corporate’s second spherical of layoffs. Wattpad laid off 42 of its 267 workforce, or 15% of the employees, in March 2023.
Final October, Wattpad launched a brand new freemium mannequin, “Wattpad Originals,” permitting writers to cover sure chapters behind a paywall and readers to entry free content material and check out earlier than they purchase. Most not too long ago, the corporate started providing “premium Picks,” which provides Premium and Premium+ subscribers month-to-month entry to 5 free Wattpad Originals.
In 2021, Naver acquired Wattpad, based by Allen Lau in 2006, for $600 million to include the storytelling platform into its publishing division.
We’ll replace this piece as we be taught extra.
