Brian Mariotti, CEO of Funko, posted a message to fans of Mondo, the high-end collectibles company it acquired last year, after Mondo was hit with layoffs — including the team leading its posters business.
As part of Funko’s 10% job cuts across the company, Mondo co-founders Mitch Putnam and Rob Jones as well as senior creative director Eric Garza were laid off last week.
In a Twitter post Thursday, Mariotti confirmed that there were layoffs at Mondo but said “the majority of the companywide layoffs weren’t in Mondo.” He also wrote that contrary to early reports last week, “the Mondo posters business will continue, period.”
That said, according to Mariotti, “We feel that making extremely limited runs of posters, most of which are 150 pieces or under, limits access to fans unfairly. Many of these posters are bought with the sole purpose of flipping them at a much higher cost to fans that really want them.”
Mariotti continued, “The posters are created by some of the most amazing artists working today. Our goal is to make larger edition size runs (limited but not ultra-limited) that allow more fans to participate in this world-class expression of pop culture art. We also believe that broadening the pop-culture scope to include TV properties, sports, anime, and music will have an amazing appetite from Mondo fans and pop-culture fans alike.”
In addition, Mariotti said in the message, Funko will be “investing heavily” in production of vinyl records in the near future, with plans to build a nearly 70,000-square-foot space in San Diego that will be a combination of record-pressing factory, “record store of the future” and live music event space. Plans for the San Diego venue also include a 4,000-square-foot dedicated Mondo art gallery.
“We are 100% committed to providing all the support we possibly can for the folks at Mondo, so they can continue to make amazing products that reach a larger and more diverse Fanbase through expanded licenses, better distribution, and a better overall experience for their fans,” Mariotti’s note concluded.
Read the full text of Mariotti’s note:
Funko has been obsessed with Mondo and the amazing products that they produce for years. We believe Mondo is a pop-culture tastemaker and always has their finger on the pulse of everything that is cool.
Since there is a lot of misinformation about the recent change in leadership and the poster division of Mondo currently out there, I can tell you that our strategy is very clear.
While we did reduce our overall workforce by about 10% across Funko, the majority of the company-wide layoffs weren’t in Mondo.
The Mondo posters business will continue, period. We feel that making extremely limited runs of posters, most of which are 150 pieces or under, limits access to fans unfairly. Many of these posters are bought with the sole purpose of flipping them at a much higher cost to fans that really want them. The posters are created by some of the most amazing artists working today. Our goal is to make larger edition size runs (limited but not ultra-limited) that allow more fans to participate in this world-class expression of pop culture art. We also believe that broadening the pop-culture scope to include TV properties, sports, anime, and music will have an amazing appetite from Mondo fans and pop-culture fans alike.
Funko will be investing heavily in the production of vinyl records in the near future, allowing Mondo to deliver records to more fans. We currently have plans to build an almost 70,000-square-foot record pressing factory meets record store of the future meets live music event space in San Diego. The space will have a 4,000-square-foot dedicated Mondo art gallery as part of the vision.
Funko is also going to great lengths to invest heavily in some of the most amazing licenses around to build out the portfolio of pop culture for Mondo’s high-end collectibles division. These are dream licenses that Mondo has wanted to work with for a long time but was unable to due to financial restrictions before we acquired them.
We are 100% committed to providing all the support we possibly can for the folks at Mondo, so they can continue to make amazing products that reach a larger and more diverse Fanbase through expanded licenses, better distribution, and a better overall experience for their fans.
Brian Mariotti
