Crackle will be closing up its Sausalito, Calif.-based shop at the end of the month and moving down to Culver City to join its corporate parent, Sony Pictures Entertainment. The move comes more than two years after Sony acquired Crackle, then called Grouper. It is also being accompanied by the departure of most of Crackle’s staff, many of whom were given job offers but declined to move to Southern California.
“It’s really the next logical step in the asset’s evolution,” said Sean Carey, senior executive vice president of Sony Pictures Television. “When we acquired Grouper, it was really about a technological platform. It’s evolved from a technology company to a media network.”
Until very recently, Crackle employed some 35 people, according to Carey, and “half or less of that” will be moving to LA before the end of the month. Sony will be replacing most of those positions with local hires. In February of this year, the site employed 60 people and laid off eight of them as part of a general restructuring. At that time co-founders Josh Felser and Dave Samuel stopped being involved on a day-to-day basis, though they officially left the company more recently.
