Global anime giant Crunchyroll will be laying off an unspecified number of its roughly 1,000 employees as part of a restructure that will focus resources on high-growth anime markets outside the United States, such as India, Mexico, Brazil, Europe and Southeast Asia.
The layoffs were announced in a Tuesday memo from Crunchyroll President Rahul Purini to staff, who noted the pink slips were “not a cost-cutting measure or driven by financial performance.” The company has 13 offices across North America, Europe and Asia, and currently has more than 100 job postings open worldwide.
Rahul wrote that “some of our colleagues will be departing the company, some will be expanding their scope, and some will be assigned new roles. These changes are effective today for those in the U.S., and the process in other countries will be managed according to local employment laws and timelines.”
As background to the decision, he explained, “As we look toward the next three to five years, we believe the right path forward is a new organizational model that supports regionally-empowered teams,” adding that new Engineering facilities will be based in the U.S., India and Mexico to take advantage of local infrastructure and skillsets, and that the leadership is “re-evaluating” the company’s “360 fan experience” which covers streaming, theatrical, live events, merch, games and more.
In 2021, Crunchyroll was acquired from AT&T and merged with Sony’s anime label Funimation Group (in turn, snagged by Sony in 2017) for $1.18 billion. The company is now a joint venture of Sony Pictures Entertainment (U.S.) and Aniplex (Japan), a subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment, and both subsidiaries of Sony Group (Japan). As of Q1 2025, Crunchyroll has more than 17 million paid monthly subscribers.
You can read the full text of the memo at Variety.
