Digital entertainment startup Pocket Aces trims 25% of its workforce

Mumbai-based Pocket Aces has laid off 50 of its 200, or 25%, full-time employees to save costs and become profitable in the coming year.

"As we continue to march towards our vision of becoming culture creators that positively influence people via our content and products, we had to take some difficult but necessary steps to keep our operating model agile and resilient," the company’s spokesperson told YourStory.

The digital entertainment company said it is innovating its operating model to depend more on freelance resources for long-form content. The development was first reported by The Economic Times.

The layoffs will affect employees from the company’s production, post-production, and content teams.

"It has been a tough decision to part with some of our talented team members and friends. However, we must continue to innovate our operating models, as this is the only way to ensure that we remain agile with changing audience preferences," Aditi Shrivastava, Co-Founder and CEO of Pocket Aces, said in response to this development.

"We deeply care about the people leaving us and will provide them with financial support, ongoing health insurance coverage, and help with their transition. We will also continue to work with many of them as freelancers and assist others with outplacements," she added.

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The company has 35 million subscribers and clocks 700 million monthly views across social media platforms with its channels Gobble (lifestyle), Dice Media (premium long-form web series), Nutshell (infotainment), and FilterCopy (short fiction).

It also runs Clout, which manages over 100 digital actors and influences.

The company is backed by investors including Sequoia Capital, North Base Media, 3One4 Capital, DSP Group, and Infosys.