According to media site Globes, the team behind blockchain smartphone Finney has laid off a quarter of its workforce. Sirin Labs has let go of 15 team members after overestimating sales of its innovative device.

The company said it had received 160,000 Finney pre-orders in late 2018, so what’s happened?

Sirin Labs Loses Workforce

The company has said in late 2018 that it only needed to sell 80,000 devices in order to make a profit. Now it seems, not only have those pre-orders not translated to actual sales, it hasn’t managed to hit the median target either.

According to the report, the company admitted that it overshot sales estimations and had to subsequently lay off 15 of its 60 employees. The company denied that it failed to pay its staff in recent months and said that it is focusing on software development and distribution.

Controversy

Apart from the poor sales of Finney, Sirin Labs has been in the midst of controversy recently. In a completely separate issue, a $50 million lawsuit has been filed in California against company founder Moshe Hogeg.

Hogeg’s venture capital fund, called Singulariteam, is being sued by entrepreneur Adam Perzow. The complainant states that he sold the domain invest.com to Hogeg for $5 million in late 2014. An agreement was made for a joint venture between the pair using that domain. Perzow alleges that he was to be made a partner and manager of this venture. However, Hogeg violated the agreement made.

Perzow has gone on to claim that the Singulariteam fund has defrauded many investors of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Further, this isn’t the only lawsuit against Hogeg. According to reports, he is facing two other lawsuits filed against him in Tel Aviv by investors in firms that he manages. While the issue is ongoing and unresolved at present, there’s no way of telling where this will go for Hogeg.

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Sirin Labs

Sirin evolved from a $158 million ICO. Its intention was to make cryptocurrency-friendly phones; however, some are now wondering if its attention will move away from that and focus on the Sirin operating system (SIRIN OS) instead.

Sirin Labs launched the Finney blockchain smartphone at the end of 2018. Its price tag is a hefty $999 per device.