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Machinima has landed another round of funding led by Warner Bros, though it hasn’t stopped the multi-channel network from cutting a chunk of its staff along with a few programs.
A total of $24m has been raised for the network by Warner Bros, Redpoint Ventures, MK Capital, Coffin Capital and Allen DeBevoise – all of which had previously invested in Machinima.
The amount supplements the $18m Warner Bros. and the other aforementioned investors already raised for Machinima last March.
"In 2014, Machinima regained our leadership position in the global digital video marketplace by focusing on our Talent Network and transforming our brand into one that is reflective of our content, our audience and our community of creators," said Machinima CEO Chad Gutstein in a statement.
"This additional funding will enable Machinima to accelerate our growth through increased investments in content and technology that better serves our audiences, advertisers, creators and distributors."
Less than a day after the news of the new funding round hit, Variety reports the network has laid off 13 of its 90 full-time employees, along with a few part-time employees. All of the jobs were related to production work on programs being discontinued.
As Machinima positions itself for the future, we must focus resources toward high-growth opportunities. Toward that end, today Machinima released 13 production staff associated with Respawn, TFTW and certain shows on Machinima LIVE as this content was simply not delivering the monetization that supports our path to profitability. Machinima is in development on its expanded 2015-16 original programming slate, details of which will be unveiled at its Newfront presentation on May 4,” a Machinima rep confirmed to Variety.
Separately, the company also has 15 open positions associated with programming, talent development, business intelligence, sales, marketing, product development and engineering.”
