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Crunchyroll Parent Company Ellation Lays Off 17 Employees

Crunchyroll's parent company Ellation laid off 17 employees from Crunchyroll on Wednesday. Crunchyroll provided ANN with a statement on Thursday from Ellation's CEO Tom Pickett:

We recently closed an acquisition to significantly expand the size of our engineering team. As part of company restructuring efforts, it is with regret that we needed to make some difficult but necessary changes at Ellation. This morning, we parted ways with 17 employees that played important roles in helping us grow the company over the last several years.

This was not an easy decision, but one that puts Ellation on the path towards continued growth. While this announcement is unfortunate, it is not a reflection of Ellation's overall business. It was a record-year for Crunchyroll in 2016 and VRV is off to a great start. We have some exciting plans for 2017 that we'll be sharing soon.

Ellation operates under Otter Media, a joint venture between AT&T and The Chernin Group formed in 2014. Otter Media is one of Crunchyroll's investors.The Chernin Group, a company run by former News Corporation executive Peter Chernin, acquired a majority stake in Crunchyroll in December 2013. Otter Media invested another US$22 million in Crunchyroll's parent company Ellation in November 2015.

Ellation launched VRV, a subscription-based content bundle of streaming services, last year. The bundle includes Crunchyroll, as well as other content providers. In September, VRV announced that it added content from FUNimation Entertainment.

Crunchyroll and Funimation launched a partnership last September that includes cross-streaming opportunities, Broadcast Dub production, and home video distribution. Since the partnership, Crunchyroll has streamed some anime titles with English subtitles that would then get an English broadcast dub from Funimation some weeks later. Funimation has also began launching dubbed versions of some of Crunchyroll's simulcast catalog titles.

Crunchyroll hired former Discovery Digital Networks senior vice president and general manager Colin Decker as chief operating officer (COO) in July.

Variety previously reported that Crunchyroll has at least 800,000 paying subscribers.