Video chat startup TokBox fires half its engineers

San Francisco video chat startup TokBox has cut six of its 12 engineers, and the last of the company’s founders has left, a company spokesman has confirmed.

The terminations were not “layoffs,” and the company immediately posted eight job listings in operations, engineering and product development, said Tom Suiter, a Grow Marketing representative speaking on behalf of the company.

The staff changes, reported earlier by online technology news site TechCrunch, were part of strategic overhaul of TokBox by new CEO Ian Small, Suiter said.

TokBox is advertising for eight positions in engineering and product development. Efforts to get comment from the company were unsuccessful.

TokBox offers a product that allows for multi-user video chat from a browser, but it hasn’t really managed to take off, much to the chagrin of the company’s investors who include Sequoia and Bain Capital. TokBox has raised $14 million to date, a lot of money for a video and chat startup, especially when similar sites have begun offering some of the same functionality.

Small is the company’s third CEO. Founder Serge Faguet was replaced by Nick Triantos last July, who in turn was replaced in May by Small, a former Mark Logic exec, according to TechCrunch.

TokBox’s last remaining co-founder, CTO Ron Hose, left the company in May to pursue other opportunities, Suiter said.

Source: San Francisco Business Times