Blockchain Analytics Firm Nansen Cuts Workforce By 30%

Blockchain analytics company Nansen Research has announced it’s cutting its workforce by 30%.

CEO Alex Svanevik took to Twitter to comment on the “extremely difficult decision” to reduce Nansen’s team size. He added that the company is making sure everyone leaving will “get a soft landing, with severance and support.”

This year has seen a large amount of layoffs, across the entire crypto space, with exchanges leading the way. These platforms haven’t been the only affected, however, with job cuts happening at payment companies and across the Web3 landscape.

In a follow up tweet, Svanevik posted the full statement, which included him saying he takes full responsibility, apologizing to those affected, and explaining the decision.

“Firstly, we scaled up the team on the back of breakneck growth in our first years of operating” he wrote, adding that the growth “led the organization to taking on surface areas that’s not truly part of Nansen’s core strategy.”

According to the CEO, the second reason behind the large layoff was the current bear market, and how this past year has been “brutal” for crypto markets. Despite today’s unfortunate news, he wrote that Nansen has “several years of runway,” and that its priority is to build a sustainable business.

Nansen last raised $75 million in Series B funding in December 2021 with participation from GIC, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), and Tiger Global.

Svanevik did not immediately reply to a request for comment from Decrypt.

Nansen Research is one of the main platforms for blockchain information with real-time dashboards, in-depth reports and wallet labels, a unique way to tag and identify addresses. The company touts itself as “crypto’s on-chain intelligence hub.”

Crypto Twitter was receptive to the news, and supportive of Svanevik’s transparency.

Founder of Web3 investment firm Defiance Capital, Arthur Cheong, replied to the statement: [I] “respect the transparent communication.” His words were echoed by Twitter user jugg.eth who tweeted “Days like these are never easy. The transparency is admirable though. Let's keep building!”

Several other crypto firms replied to Svanevik to say they were hiring, including Ava Labs, the company behind the Avalanche network; NFT platform FirstMate; along with early-stage funding company, Chapter One.

The Nansen CEO ended the statement on an optimistic note, calling the company a “young and learning organization” that’s eager to “help build a new financial fabric for the world.”