Cardano Developer IOG Restructures to Venture Studio Model, Lays Off Some Staff

Cardano developer Input Output Global (IOG) has laid off an unspecified number of employees as the company restructures into a “venture studio” with a smaller core business model, IOG and Cardano co-founder Charles Hoskinson told CoinDesk.

“IOG has been restructuring into a venture studio where its core is smaller and it has many spin-offs,” Hoskinson said.

He added, “As we move into this new business model, we’ve consolidated and eliminated groups that are redundant or not relevant to the new model.”

The new venture studio model will have a number of spinoffs, including a wallet division, Lace; an identity framework, Prism; and Cardano-related infrastructures.

According to Hoskinson, mostly executive staff at the IOG level were cut. Meanwhile, he said IOG has hired CEOs for Midnight and RealFi, who in turn have hired additional staff.

“Longer term I expect 3-5 companies per year to be spun out,” Hoskinson said. “Under this model, things like strategy and commercial aren't monolithic, they are pushed to the spinouts under the CEOs.”

An IOG representative did not immediately reply to CoinDesk’s request for comment on which roles the company eliminated.

UPDATE (June 12, 13:40 UTC): Added additional details from Hoskinson.