Candy Digital lays off one-third of its staff

NFT platform Candy Digital laid off a third of his staff, roughly 100 staff members amid the ongoing crypto bear market and declining NFT trading volume, according to Sportico and former Candy Digital employee Matthew Muntner.

Candy Digital is a sports and entertainment NFT platform founded in 2021 by executive chairman of sports merchandise giant Fanatics, along with entrepreneur and investor Gary Vaynerchuk and Galaxy Digital founder and CEO Michael Novogratz.

The NFT platform’s value soared to US$1.5 million after it raised US$100 million in a Series A funding round co-led by Softbank and Insight Partners within a few months after its launch.

Candy Digital’s NFT partnerships include Major League Baseball, NASCAR teams, WWE and Netflix, with sports licensing company Fanatics as its major shareholder.

Other companies in the NFT space including Dapper Labs, the creator of the NBA Top Shot marketplace announced it was laying off 22% of its staff, citing macroeconomic conditions in early November. In July, OpenSea also laid off 20% of its workforce and other big firms like Meta which laid off more than 11,000 of its employees while Galaxy Digital is expecting to let go of up to 20% of its workforce soon.

Photo: Candy Digital