Pop Culture Collectibles Company Funko Undergoes Major Layoffs

Alex Weprin
·2 min read
2

Funko, the toy and collectibles company focused on selling items with connections to pop culture, is undergoing a significant restructuring.

The company disclosed in a securities filing Friday that it will lay off between 180-200 employees, representing about 12-13 percent of its workforce.

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Funko said it expected to incur charges of up to $2.8 million associated with the layoffs, but that it will result in $20 million to $22 million of annualized run rate cash savings. The company says it is choosing to slash its staffing level as “part of the Company’s initiatives to re-balance its cost structure into prioritized areas that the Company believes will drive long-term growth and improve margins. As the Company focuses on these goals, it is consolidating functions and eliminating or reducing investment in areas of lower focus.”

The company already laid off about 150 employees earlier this year, and cut back its collectible movie poster business which operated under the Mondo brand name, which it had acquired for $14 million just a year earlier.

Funko is best known for its Funko Pop! figurines, which are based on licenses to well-known entertainment, sports, and pop culture franchises like Marvel, Harry Potter, etc. The company also produced apparel, games, and other collectibles based on established IP.

The collectibles company, with its cult following and massive list of licensed IP, had grown significantly over the last decade. As part of that expansion it pushed into more premium collectibles, like the movie posters and vinyl records released by Mondo, as well as into NFTs at the height of that trend. The company went public in 2019.

However, a changing collectibles market (which boomed during the COVID-19 pandemic and has since come down to earth) had left a lot of product unsold, forcing a pivot from the company.

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