Celebrity-taught course platform, MasterClass, is laying off 79 employees, including its chief product officer, two vice presidents, and more than two dozen senior, director, or management roles. A brief search on LinkedIn revealed that the company’s Chief Operating Officer (COO) of five years also “stepped away” last month.

This is the third round of known layoffs in the last eight months for MasterClass. In June 2022, MasterClass laid off 20% of its 600 staff, bringing its headcount to potentially half of what it was a few months earlier. And in December, Class Central exclusively reported that the company had conducted another round of layoffs focused on content creation teams.

MasterClass last raised funds in May 2021, securing $225 million at a valuation of $2.75 billion, with plans to use the funds to expand internationally and launch an enterprise business. However, a quick glance at their catalog doesn’t show any significant uptick in international instructors. To date, MasterClass has raised $475 million.

As online learning companies chased “the new normal”, they grew fast in hopes of future growth. Now, companies across the board are conducting layoffs. This year alone we have seen Udemy, Domestika, Thinkific,  and Pluralsight conduct layoffs. A list of layoffs in 2022 can be found here.