US-based Banking-as-a-Service startup Synapse has laid of 40% of its workforce after losing a major client.
The latest round of layoffs comes just months after the firm cut 18% of its staffing roster in response to changing "macro-economic conditions".
This week's cutbacks hit 112 employees - 86 of them full-time employees, the rest contractors. It follows the loss of one of Synapse's biggest clients, business banking platform Mercury, which has nixed its contract in favour of working with its banking partner, Evolve Bank and Trust.
“Unfortunately, this past week Evolve took shocking and disappointing actions, contradictory to our discussions and inconsistent with our contractual obligations,” Sankaet Pathak wrote in a Slack message to the company seen by Forbes.
Laid off staff are not receiving severance payments, but two of the company’s investors, CoreVC and a16z, have offered to place employees in positions at other portfolio companies.
Morre doom and gloom in the US fintech sector comes from four-year old fintech startup Braid, which shut down its multi-user friends and family accounts in September after being hit by the downturn in fintech funding.