Polygon lays off 19% of its labs team; offers 2 months severance pay

Layer-2 protocol Polygon's division Polygon Labs said it would be laying off about 60 employees—or 19% of its workforce.

The announcement came via a blog post by Marc Boiron, CEO of Polygon Labs. Boiron said that the company would provide about two months of severance and health benefits to the impacted employees.

"I recognise there is no right way to let someone abruptly know that they are impacted by this decision, and even though we have already notified these team members (and discontinued their access to our systems, for security reasons), we will speak to them personally as well," he wrote.

As per Boiron, with a smaller team, the company would be able to expedite demanding projects and execute them at its highest potential. Polygon has also decided to spin off its venture arm Polygon Ventures and as well as PolygonID—a platform for decentralized identities using zero-knowledge proofs—as standalone entities.

"Saying goodbye to friends and colleagues is always very painful, but this was a necessary step to take Polygon Labs back to its 'underdog' roots," said Co-founder Sandeep Nailwal in a post on X (formerly Twitter). Those within the company will receive a 15% hike, as per the company's blog post.

In October last year, Co-founder Jaynti Kanani announced that he would be leaving Polygon. It last raised $450 million in a Series A funding round led by Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia Capital India) in 2022.