Indian origin CEO-run fintech startup Synapse lays off 86 employees

San Francisco, Oct 7

Fintech startup Synapse, backed by global VC firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and run by Indian-origin CEO Sankaet Pathak, has laid off 86 people, or nearly 40 per cent of its workforce.

This is the second round of layoffs at the startup this year.

In June, CEO Pathak had announced to let go of 18 per cent of its workforce, as they “made the difficult decision to reduce and restructure our team in areas that were staffed for unrealised growth or redundancy”.

Synapse told TechCrunch late on Friday that they “deeply regret saying goodbye to incredibly talented and dedicated members of the Synapse team”.

“However, we have a strong group in place to manage all of our operations and support our customers going forward. We don’t have anything to add to this right now beyond what’s been previously reported.”

The startup was founded in 2014 by Bryan Keltner and Pathak, with an eye toward offering a viable alternative to legacy banking systems, while providing operational simplicity, efficiency and ease of integration to perform virtually any banking interaction.

In 2019, it raised $33 million in its Series B funding led by Andreessen Horowitz.

In June, Pathak said that Synapse achieved a significant milestone in 2022 in its journey by reaching profitability and becoming cash flow positive.

“However, the current macroeconomic conditions have begun to impact our clients and platforms, affecting our anticipated growth,” he added.

“While this is a challenging time, we remain confident in the underlying fundamentals and potential of our business. The steps we are taking will position us for continued success and allow us to adapt to the evolving needs of our clients and the market,” said Pathak.