It wasn’t a good sign when Funko announced plans earlier this month to destroy between $30 million and $36 million worth of its collectible vinyl figures due to falling demand causing their value to plummet. But Funko’s recent decision to lay off around half of the Mondo subsidiary’s employees paints a clear picture of a company struggling to ensure its financial strength.
Although Funko only acquired Mondo — the Austin-based nostalgic memorabilia outfit known for its movie posters and small-batch vinyl records — from Alamo Drafthouse last summer, The envelope reports that “most” Mondo staff, including co-founders Rob Jones and Mitch Putnam, were laid off this week. Along with the layoffs, Funko would shut down Mondo’s poster division entirely, although io9 reports that the company intends to continue producing posters “under different management” in the future.
For now, Mondo’s toy and record-producing arms will live to see another day, and there are still a handful of posters for sale on Mondo’s site. The selection is quite limited, however, and it seems more than the folks at Mondo once knew and loved.
