Virtual events startup Hopin, valued at $7.75B in August 2021, lays off 242 employees, or ~29% of its staff, after cutting 12% of its staff in February 2022
Context & Ripple Effects
Hopin's arc is one of the sharpest pandemic boom-and-bust stories in European tech. Just over a year before these cuts, the company raised $400M at a $5.65B valuation, more than doubling its price in consecutive rounds, and peaked at $7.75B by August 2021.
The decline was visible by spring: an [[a:978246|FT investigation found Hopin's Explore page listing fewer than 500 events, down from more than 15,000]], after the company had raised over $1B in total. These layoffs — 242 people, roughly 29% of staff, following a 12% cut in February — are the response to that demand collapse.
First-order effects
- 242 Hopin employees lose their jobs, bringing cumulative headcount cuts to roughly 40% in five months — a direct unwind of the hiring spree funded during the 2021 fundraising peak.
Second-order effects
- With usage collapsing, Hopin's $7.75B valuation becomes untenable for its investors, pushing the company from cost-cutting toward selling off parts of the business — a path that ends with RingCentral acquiring its Events and Session units.
Third-order effects
- Hopin's eventual liquidation of its UK parent and HQ relocation to Delaware points to how pandemic-era winners end: companies that scaled headcount and valuation on lockdown demand either break up into asset sales or wind down entirely rather than recover their former markets.
The trend: Pandemic-era virtual-events startups that raised mega-rounds on lockdown demand are shrinking through successive layoffs toward asset sales and liquidation as in-person events return.