Brave Browser maker lays off 9% of its workforce

Brave Software, maker of Brave Browser and Brave Search, confirmed that it has laid off 9% of its workforce. Brave Software was founded in 2015. The private company has seen significant growth ever since it launched the first version of Brave Browser in 2016.

Brave Browser is a privacy-focused Chromium-based web browser. The company and its browser are not without criticism though. Especially the integration of Brave Rewards, an advertising system that rewards users for viewing advertisement with BAT, Basic Attention Token, currency has been the focus of criticism.

The system is entirely optional though and supporters of Brave Browser highlight the browser's privacy and security systems, which work out of the box in many cases.

A Brave spokesperson told Techcrunch that the layoffs were part of the company's cost management in a "challenging economic environment". Brave did not reveal the number of employees that it let go. The company's LinkedIn page lists 229 employees, but those are probably only those that are on LinkedIn and linked to the company. Taking the figure, it would mean that Brave Software let go at least 20 employees.

Brave Browser and Brave Search have seen considerable growth. Brave Software's Transparency Data Feed lists 63.86 million active users and 22.96 daily active users for the month of August 2023.

Three years ago, Brave claimed that it had 7 million daily active users and 20.5 million monthly active users.

The company has expanded its portfolio of products and revenue generating options. Besides Brave Browser and its BAT system, Brave Software has launched Brave Search. Brave Search is an independently run search engine, which the company introduced in 2021.

Brave Search is supported by what Brave Software calls privacy preserving ads. These ads or the search engine do not track users. Brave Software launched a search API as well, which offers access to the database starting at $3 per 1000 queries.

The most recent company product is LEO, an AI chat assistant that the company has integrated into Brave Browser. Leo is free to use, but Brave Software announced plans to introduce a paid tier in the future.

Brave Software is a private company and it is unclear how well it is doing because of that. It is not the only company that announced rounds off layoffs. Microsoft, Meta or Google have all laid off employees in the past two year period.

Now You: do you use Brave products?

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