Vimeo Confirms Sweeping Layoffs Globally After $1 Billion Sale

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Vimeo began laying off employees across its global teams in January 2026, marking the second round of job cuts since Bending Spoons acquired the company for $1.38 billion in November 2025.

New owner implements second round of job cuts since deal closed in November, raising concerns about the video platform’s future direction.

What’s Driving Vimeo’s Large-Scale Layoffs?

While Bending Spoons confirmed the latest round of layoffs to Business Insider, the company declined to specify exactly how many employees were affected. 

However, reports suggest the cuts have been substantial, impacting teams across multiple countries.

A former employee on X said that the whole video team at his office was laid off:

"Almost everyone at Vimeo was laid off yesterday, including the entire video team. ... Sucks to see something I built killed by private equity in a technology company skin suit."

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Another user on HackerNews also confirmed that the layoffs are huge: “Most everyone I knew there was just laid off, with a skeleton crew that’s been asked to stay on until April.” Some claimed only 15 engineers are left at Vimeo.

The Bending Spoons Playbook

The acquisition of Vimeo by Bleeding Spoons was announced in September 2025 in an all-cash transaction. 

Bending Spoons isn’t a household name like Google or Meta, but it has quietly built a portfolio of well-known tech platforms, including Evernote, Meetup, and WeTransfer. 

This isn’t the first time Vimeo employees have faced job losses since the acquisition. Just months before the sale was finalized, Vimeo cut 10% of its full-time workforce in September last year. 

The layoffs also fit a concerning pattern established by them in its previous acquisitions. 

When the company purchased WeTransfer in 2024, it laid off 75% of the workforce just weeks after closing the deal. Similar job cuts followed acquisitions of other platforms in Bending Spoons’ portfolio.

So, at least in this case, AI is not the key reason for job cuts. Still, this deal will decide the future of Vimeo in the coming years.

Bleeding Spoon’s strategy appears to focus on acquiring established but potentially underperforming tech brands, then restructuring them. They buy products that are already “finished”, then trim large engineering teams and operate them with very small staff. The focus is on keeping things running while maximizing profits.

This also clearly shows layoffs in the tech sector are not stopping, after being at their peak in 2025. Just a few days ago, Meta announced cuts of around 10% of its Reality Labs workforce.

Vimeo’s Journey and Challenges

Founded in 2004, Vimeo has long positioned itself as an alternative to YouTube, focusing on high-quality video hosting for professionals. The platform historically attracted filmmakers, artists, and businesses who valued its ad-free player and professional tools.

In recent years, Vimeo expanded beyond simple video hosting, offering software for webinars, virtual events, and other business applications. The company was previously owned by media holding company IAC, which spun it off as a public company in 2021.

However, competing in the video platform space has proven challenging. With YouTube dominating consumer video and numerous competitors in the enterprise video space, Vimeo struggled to find sustainable growth and profitability as a standalone public company.

But the scale of the layoffs raises concerns about whether Vimeo will maintain the product quality and customer service that differentiated it from competitors. 

Bottom Line

Reaction from the tech community is very negative to this news. Many feel that acquisitions like this reward investors, while the people who actually built and maintained the product bear the cost. Engineers, designers, and support teams lose their jobs, even as deals close at billion-dollar valuations. 

Overall, the move highlights a growing trend of consolidation and cost-cutting across tech, especially for platforms struggling to compete with giants.