Zoosk is planning to lay off the entirety of its San Francisco-based staff within the next year.
The news was first announced last week in a letter from Spark Networks CEO Jeronimo Folgueira, which explained to investors why the company has been declining in value and how the board are planning to rectify the situation.
66% of Zoosk’s Californian workforce is due to be cut by the end of 2019 in an attempt to reduce outgoing costs and achieve full profitability.
The remaining third will exit by June 2020, with all of the dating platform’s operations being run out of Berlin in the future.
Recent estimates from the San Francisco Business Times Book of Lists show that Zoosk had a total of 93 employees at the California office in 2019.
Spark Networks’ stock has declined by more than 50% since it completed the $255 million takeover of Zoosk at the beginning of July.
It is hoping to emerge as the undisputed market leader in serious dating, and boost its profits by introducing updated freemium features and entering into new international markets.
Folgueira spoke to news outlet Cheddar in August and explained how Zoosk will help Spark to reach new geos.
He said: “Zoosk is mass market, it’s a brand that can be something for everyone and captures a lot more people. It’s a brand that performs extremely well, especially in the Mid-West and does well in other parts of the country where [Elite Singles], for example, does not.”
Subsidiary JSwipe released an in-depth report about the current state of Jewish dating last week. It found that the majority of users wanted to be in a relationship with someone who shared their faith.
Read more here.