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GamerDNA Inc. has cut nearly half its workforce and is considering a move out of its Cambridge headquarters, CEO and co-founder Jon Radoff says.
The small startup laid off six of its 13 employees last week. GamerDNA makes an online social network for video game players, which recommends games based on players’ stated preferences and game-playing activity, and then tracks that information and shares it via social networks like Twitter.
After the cost cutting, GamerDNA is operating at “better than break-even,” Radoff wrote in an email. “We remain determined to develop GamerDNA into a great firm.” He said its Central Square office is too big and costly for its current needs, but the company has not yet made a decision about whether to move, or where.
GamerDNA draws its sole revenue from advertising. In July, the company announced the launch of an online ad-serving network, the GamerDNA Alliance Network, which targets ads based on games users are playing and discussing online. The network went live in January, according to an online tracking site.
The global reach of GamerDNA’s ad network grew to 9.2 million unique monthly users in September, tapering off to 8 million in the current month, according to data offered by Quantcast Corp. Radoff said Quantcast’s data are close to accurate but do not capture all the sites in GamerDNA’s network. The network’s real peak was close to 10 million unique monthly users, he said.
Radoff and Angela Bull, his wife and frequent collaborator, launched GamerDNA in 2006 as Sparkforge Entertainment Inc., later changing its name to GuildCafe Entertainment Inc. Its second name change – to GamerDNA – took place last April, after the company took $3 million in Series A venture capital financing from Boston-based Flybridge Capital Partners. Flybridge’s Jon Karlen holds a seat on GamerDNA’s board.
In the early 1990s, Radoff and Bull co-founded NovaLink USA Corp., which developed the online game Legends of Future Past. In 1997, they co-founded Framingham-based software maker Eprise Corp., which was acquired in 2001 by Divine Inc. in a stock deal worth about $43 million.
“The people who are no longer with the company are extraordinarily talented,” Radoff wrote of the recent changes at his company, “but, like many companies today, we’ve had to make some extremely difficult decisions.”
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