Sirin Labs is laying off 30 of its staff, and this accounts for one-third of its entire workforce of 90 people. The company is best known for the Solarin, a smartphone which was launched by the company last May, with a focus on security. The news of the restructuring of the startup was confirmed by the company itself to Techcrunch, and a spokesperson has mentioned that the firm is pursuing new directions to a new product line. In turn, new staff will be hired and they will be playing a role in the new vision of the company.
It was initially reported that Sirin Labs will discontinue the production of the Solarin, but that has turned out to be inaccurate, according to the spokesperson. The Solarin is still being manufactured and it is still supported by the company. On top of that, new color variants of the device will be introduced, though Moshe Hogeg, CEO of Sirin Labs, has stated that the company is planning to discontinue its smartphone line. The company has around $20 million in its bank account, and it doesn’t plan on raising more to produce a new smartphone. Instead the company will be shifting its focus to “new computing devices”. The Solarin has only seen $10 million in sales since its launch as year, and this translates to around 700 to 750 units sold, though this figure hasn’t been confirmed by the startup. Sirin Labs also mentioned that its Solarin smartphone is the top-selling handset at Harrods, an upscale departmental store located in London.
The Solarin was first released last year, and it came with a hefty price tag of $16,000, competing with the likes of Vertu and was easily one of the most expensive devices of the year. Sirin Labs managed to produce the device after it raised $72 million in seed funding, and the phone was endorsed by famous celebrities such as Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy. While the device didn’t pack specs worthy of its price tag, the Solarin focused on security. For example, it has a single switch found at the back of the phone, and when it is activated, the device becomes a super-secure phone that only allows for phone calls and encrypted messaging. Besides that, it ran on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor from 2015, and came out of the box running on Android 5.1.1 Lollipop. At the time of launch, many new devices were already running on Android 6.0 Marshmallow.