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Crunchyroll Lays Off Approximately 85 Employees Globally

Anime streaming service Crunchyroll laid off about 85 employees last week. According to one employee with knowledge about the recent terminations, the layoffs included employees in the United States, Moldova, France, Germany, and Australia and primarily affected the company's marketing and engineering sectors. The source did not know if the layoffs only affected full-time employees or included contractors.

According to Crunchyroll's job listing page, the company has 12 offices with locations in Culver City in California, San Francisco, Dallas, New York City, Melbourne in Australia, Paris and Roubaix in France, Berlin, Tokyo, Chișinău in Moldova, Lausanne in Switzerland, and London.

Crunchyroll President Rahul Purini informed staff about the layoffs in an email on February 16. The email cites the integration of the Funimation and Crunchyroll teams as the reason behind the terminations. At an "All Staff" meeting on Tuesday, Crunchyroll leadership informed employees that those who were laid off will continue to receive benefits throughout the severance period. Multiple sources cited that the decision was not a cost-saving measure but rather a matter of resolving redundant roles.

According to one source, Crunchyroll had an estimated 1,400 full-time employees prior to the layoffs.

Anime News Network contacted Crunchyroll for comment, but a company representative referred to Purini's email. The company declined to provide the exact number of layoffs or current full-time employees at Crunchyroll.

Sony's Funimation Global Group completed its acquisition of Crunchyroll from AT&T on August 9, 2021, after the company first announced the acquisition in December 2020. The purchase price was US$1.175 billion, and the proceeds were paid in cash at closing. Funimation's home video releases are now listed under Crunchyroll.