Israeli Fintech Unicorn Melio Cuts 10% of Workforce over Shift in Production Priorities

Israeli fintech unicorn Melio has announced that it is laying off 60 employees, representing a 10% cut in its workforce. Most of the employees being fired, according to Melio, are sales staff in the US. Melio, which has developed a tech platform for bill paying services for businesses, says that the layoffs represent a change in priorities at the company, after signing a strategic cooperation agreement last month and launching a new product. At the same time Melio says it is doubling its Israel development and product team in Tel Aviv.

In July, Melio unveiled a solution for business payments in collaboration with US bank Capital One. As part of the collaboration, the bank's credit cardholders can pay suppliers on credit through the bank's website, even if the supplier does not offer credit. This service is based on Melio's platform. Following the agreement, the company's focus has shifted to marketing the new payment channel with the bank, allowing it to lay off sales staff.

Melio was founded in 2018 by CEO Matan Bar, a serial entrepreneur whose first startup The Gifts Project was sold to eBay in 2011. After the acquisition, Bar worked at eBay and PayPal before founding Melio with CTO Ilan Atias, who had worked in development at a range of startups including Outbrain and PrimeSense, and Ziv Paz, who is no longer active at Melio. In the company's most recent financing round in September 2021, it raised $250 million at a company valuation of $4 billion.

Melio said, "Due to a shift in production priorities, we've made the difficult decision to separate ways from 60 team members across our sales and customer success team. This is a hard day for the impacted team members and also for the rest of the Melio team as we have to say goodbye to great people that are close to us and who made Melio what it is today. While it was necessary to make these reductions, we want to do it the right way. We have looked across severance, equity, healthcare, and job support and have done our best to treat everyone in the most thoughtful way we can. We also encouraged impacted members to apply to other open roles that Melio is hiring for across its sites. Melio will continue to accelerate hiring for its R&D teams and expand its offices in Tel Aviv, New York and Denver to support this overall team growth in order to be able to support its current and future strategic opportunities."

(Source: Globes)