Zenly employees did not expect that. On Wednesday, in an email sent by its CEO Evan Spiegel, the American group Snap announced that it wants to close the French company, which it acquired in 2017 for 213 million dollars. This shutdown is part of a global savings plan. Snap, rocked by the upheaval in digital advertising, is laying off a total of 1,200 employees and shutting down or downsizing several services. Zenly and its 70 employees are part of this cleanup. The social network he published will soon close its doors and the entire staff will be downsized.
The day after this announcement, there is a misunderstanding among Zenly employees. The latter received Snap shares in July and was congratulated by the head of the group for the job. Since their acquisition in 2017, the Zenly social network has grown from 120,000 to 35 million active users worldwide, and the growth has continued. An ambitious overhaul of the service went live last May. So the lights seemed to be green for Parisian society. The only downside is the departure of CEO and founder Antoine Martin in April 2022.
“We’ve invested heavily in Zenlysays a Snap spokesperson. But the group believes it can no longer support the French company, which is under-monetized, while the parent company refocuses on growing its own app. “We will focus our efforts on our Snap Map service in the future,” a Snapchat feature similar to Zenly.
The resale scenario is excluded
Zenly, launched in 2016 by Antoine Martin and Alexis Bonillo, is a social mapping service. Specifically, users can geo-locate themselves, find out where their friends are, and chat with each other. After raising funds from Kima Ventures (Xavier Niel), IDInvest and then US Benchmark Capital, Zenly caught the eye of Evan Spiegel and was acquired by Snap in June 2017. The French company has maintained some autonomy and evolved alongside Snapchat. . Therefore, the technologies behind Zenly and Snap Map are not the same.
Although it’s underused in the US and Europe, Snapchat’s backup, Zenly is today in the top 10 most downloaded social networks in Asia, and particularly in Japan, a market that’s notoriously difficult for Western apps anyway. : . The app has also made a name for itself in Central Europe.
“How is it possible that an American actor can kill such a French company? Snap could sell Zenly to another group or even to its founders. There would be takers. Especially since Zenly wasn’t a direct threat to Snapchat– says a good connoisseur of Parisian society. According to our information, Snap would have explained to Zenly employees that they ruled out the resale scenario in order not to see the birth of a potential competitor.
Staff are now awaiting details of their business closure process, which is expected to take several months. The Snap group confirms that the employees will be accompanied by a redeployment cell. But so far, some are not expected to join the American parent company, which has partially frozen hiring.
Source: Le Figaro
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.