SG’s Endowus cuts less than 10% of staff, citing market downturn

Endowus’ CEO Gregory Van (left) and chief investment officer Samuel Rhee / Photo credit: Endowus

Singapore-based Endowus, a SoftBank-backed wealthtech platform, has laid off less than 10% of its staff after a “sharp pull back in the financial markets and tech sector” last year.

Gregory Van, the company’s CEO, confirmed the retrenchment to Tech in Asia, saying that its growth trajectory had slowed down amid the shaky economic landscape.

The news was delivered to employees on March 30. Endowus currently has around 150 to 200 people on its payroll, according to its LinkedIn page.

Affected employees have been given a severance package, which includes a total of 10 weeks of pay without exception, accelerated vesting of employee stock ownership plans, payment of accrued and unused leaves in 2022 and 2023, and career support.

Endowus has slowed down in hiring and cut back on costs, including volunteer reduction of salaries by management.

“With this sustained growth and an optimized cost structure, we can build exciting technology for our clients efficiently, and we are now on an even stronger path toward profitability,” the CEO added.

Van, who previously led business development and partnerships for Grab’s payments and tech unit, founded Endowus in 2017. Since then, it has raised a total of about US$49 million in funding, according to Tech in Asia data.

The CEO said the company currently manages over US$4 billion in assets, making it one of the largest wealthtech players in Southeast Asia.

In October 2022, Endowus acquired a majority stake in wealth manager Carret Private to expand to Hong Kong.

See also: Mapping Southeast Asia’s key wealthtech players