Emmanuel Njoku’s, Lazerpay says it wants to “part ways” with some members of staff

Lazerpay, Nigerian crypto payment startup, today announced plans to layoff some of its staff as it hopes to make the needed adjustments in the operations of the business.

The exact number of employees was not disclosed in the statement the CEO, Emmanuel Njoku shared in a tweet. However, Lazerpay’s LinkedIn page states the company has a staff strength of between 11 and 50 employees (as of the time of this writing).

Njoku, in his statement, acknowledged that the company had been battling with some financial crisis after the its “proposed lead investor pulled out resources abruptly” earlier this year.

He further alleged that the company’s management has been working for free ever since. Others in the company have also taken voluntary pay cutbacks to help keep it solvent.

Njoku, then 19 years old, founded the company in 2021 with the intention of making it the Stripe of cryptocurrencies by making it easier for businesses to accept stablecoins from customers around the world.

According to the CEO, the Nigerian  startup has helped 3,000 businesses in accepting stablecoin payments.

Interestingly, the company acquired funding from Nestcoin, which just recently announced that it will be reducing its workforce since its funds were lost in the defunct cryptocurrency exchange FTX.

This follows the recent layoff by Quidax, also a cryptocurrency startup, due to an economic downturn around the world.

A growing number of tech companies in Africa are laying off workers and the list of the unemployed continues to grow, as they cite the difficult economic climate brought on by the pandemic and stifling inflation in global economies.

Currently, the following startups have, in one way or the other announced a reduction in size of their staff; with industry analysts projecting that more jobs would be lost in Q1 2023.

1. Nestcoin,
2. 54Gene,
3. Kuda Bank,
4. Wave,
5. Vezeeta,
6. SWVL,
7. Marketforce,
8. Vandese,
9. Quidax
10. Lazerpay
11. …