Personetics Founders
The hits keep on coming to Israel Startup Nation as Minute Media, Personetics, Twine Solutions and several other companies have all announced major cutbacks and the firing of employees in the past few days. While the Bank of Israel foresees a good year coming up in 2023 for Israel’s economy, it may take a while before the string of cutbacks come to an end and even longer before the same firms start rehiring people, if ever.
2022 saw the worldwide financial system and stock markets in chaos due to spikes in inflation and disruptions to the global supply chains. This was largely due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in March and the sanctions imposed on Russia and Russian oligarchs in response. This led to a sharp spike in the price of oil. Then central banks raised rates to fight inflation and this is never good for businesses seeking investments. Investors move their money into safer bonds as they offer higher returns, which, in turn, leads to drops in stock prices.
Israeli startup Twine Solutions develops digital thread dyeing systems. The company is laying off 30 employees, or about a third of its workforce.
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Founded in 2015, Twine Solution LTD. is a technology startup developing a proprietary, digital thread dyeing system and digital dye to match algorithm based application. The technology takes in a continuous single white color thread and dyes the thread to any requested length and color with millions of available colors and shades as well as color gradients. Twine’s DST (Digital Selective Treatment) technology, enable thread dyeing on- demand and ready to use within seconds with high GRADE in a unique, waterless, eco- friendly process.
“2022 was challenging for the entire industry. In order to preserve the company’s activity during an economic recession, the company’s management implemented several steps to streamline and cut back, including also very regretfully parting with employees,” the company said in a statement. “This is a difficult decision, but we believe that with hard and joint work we will overcome this period and continue to provide the textile world with the necessary revolution provided by Twine’s technology.”
OK, so maybe dying solutions are not the in thing right now. But fintech is supposed to be a safe bet, but even fintech firms are hurting.
Israeli fintech startup Personetics, a global provider of data-driven personalization and customer engagement solutions for banks and financial services providers, laid off about 8% of its people, 30 out of 350 employees.
Fintech startup Personetics’ Self-Driving Finance solutions are based on AI and are used by financial institutions to “transform digital banking into the center of the customer’s financial life – providing real-time personalized insight and advice, automating financial decisions, and simplifying day-to-day money management.”
Minute Media, an Israeli content technology company, is laying off 50 employees, almost 10% of its 520-person workforce. And this came a little over a year after Minute Media acquired Wazimo, an Israeli startup that helps content based businesses grow their audiences for $70 million.
Founded in Israel in 2011, Minute Media’s portfolio now consists of 6 global sports and entertainment brands, including Players’ Tribune and The Big Lead, all of which are powered by Minute Media’s proprietary publishing platform. This technology is also leveraged by third party publishers, powering their digital content destinations while servicing their business and operational needs.
Minute Media explained the move in a statement saying it was necessary, “In order to focus on the company’s strategic directions and out of responsibility to the success of the company and its employees, we decided to reduce the company’s workforce by 10%.”
The company added that this this is a step towards “streamlining and driving towards profitability in a complex period for the markets, while focusing resources towards continued significant growth in 2023-2024.”
And that is not all. Predictive analytics platform Pecan AI is laying off a quarter of its staff, 30 people. WalkMe, a software company, is laying off 43 employees, or 3% of its total.
