The Near Foundation, the company responsible for developing the layer-1 protocol that bears its name, announced that it would lay off forty percent of its workforce “to significantly consolidate the core Foundation team to focus on a narrower and higher-impact set of activities.”
According to the announcement that was made on January 11, the decision to terminate the employment of 35 employees working in marketing, business development, and community teams at Near was made in response to feedback that the Foundation “has not always been as effective as it could be, sometimes moving too slowly and trying to do too many things at once.”
“The NEAR Foundation will provide support to affected colleagues during this time to help them find new opportunities in the NEAR ecosystem, the Web3 industry, and beyond.”
However, it would appear that the Near Foundation’s financial situation has been strong despite the layoffs that have taken place.
The Near Foundation’s treasury currently holds more than $285 million in fiat currencies, 305 million NEAR tokens valued at over $1 billion, and $70 million in investments and loans.
“The Foundation is well-placed to continue to support the ongoing growth, development, and further decentralization of the Near Protocol and ecosystem,” according to CEO Illia Polosukhin.
The Near Foundation announced that Marieke Flament, who was serving as CEO at the time, had resigned on September 21, 2023. No detailed reasons were provided for her departure.
During the period that Flement was in charge of the organization, which was between 2021 and 2023, the treasury balance increased to 330 million NEAR, which was equivalent to $350 million at the time of her resignation.
While this was going on, the number of daily active users on Near Foundation increased from 50,000 to 3 million, and the number of people who follow it on Twitter increased from 200,000 to over 2 million.
More than 2,000 pieces of news coverage contributed to this growth.
