Cryptocurrency startup Circle Internet Financial is planning to boost its employee headcount by up to 25% in 2023, bucking the broader market downturn whereby other crypto-related firms have implemented layoffs or filed for bankruptcy protection, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday, citing a company executive. Throughout the year, Circle, the Boston, Massachusetts-based company behind USD Coin ( USDC-USD ) stablecoin, is looking to add as much as 225 staff to its end-2022 employee base of 900, CFO Jeremy Fox-Geen told the newspaper. The hiring, albeit at a slower pace than in 2022, was said to have come even after the company's canceled SPAC deal in December 2022. And at around this time last year, Circle was valued at $9B in a revised go-public deal with SPAC Concord Acquisition ( CND ). In a bid to access the capital market, Circle still intends to go public but likely not within this year amid tough market conditions, Fox-Geen told the WSJ . In July 2021, the same month in which Concord Acquisition ( CND ) agreed to take Circle public , Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire said SPAC funds will help build out crypto-economic systems that are in "early stages of innovation curve."
