A major round of layoffs at Rec Room impacted 141 employees at the Seattle-based startup according to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification filing on Wednesday from the Washington State Employment Security Department.
Rec Room announced the cuts on Monday, saying that they amounted to roughly half the staff at the 9-year-old gaming company. The startup now has just over 100 employees.
In a company blog post, co-founder and CEO Nick Fajt, alongside co-founder Cameron Brown, called the cuts “one of the toughest choices in Rec Room history.”
Founded in 2016, Rec Room grew in popularity behind the success of its self-named virtual hangout app, which allows players to make and share games, virtual goods, and other experiences with one another.
The startup became one of a handful of “unicorns” in Seattle after raising $100 million in 2021. It raised another $145 million at a $3.5 billion valuation later that year.
