Below is a recap of the layoffs from this past week. Check out the Layoffs.fyi Tracker for a complete list of all tech layoffs during the pandemic.
🏢 Waze ∙ 🌎 SF Bay Area ∙ 👩 30 employees (5%) ∙ 🔗Source
- 5% of employees at Google-owned Waze, a navigation app, were laid off as a result of stay-at-home orders across the globe. Global weekly driving averages were down 70% at one point in the pandemic, and Waze’s carpooling service continues to see a significant drop in demand. The layoff was concentrated in Waze’s sales, marketing, and partnerships teams; those laid off will receive severance and health insurance into early 2021.
🏢 Ouster ∙ 🌎 SF Bay Area ∙ 👩 10% of employees ∙ 🔗Source
- Lidar startup Ouster laid off 10% of its workforce due to COVID-19. Despite the layoff and a shutdown of its manufacturing facility earlier in the pandemic, Ouster recently raised a $42 million Series B and reported increasing revenue. Diversification has helped: unlike other lidar startups, Ouster sells its sensors to defense, agriculture, and mining companies, in addition to automakers.
🏢 Akerna ∙ 🌎 Denver ∙ 👩 Unknown # of employees ∙ 🔗Source
- Layoffs ensued at Akerna, a marijuana compliance software company, after it acquired Ample Organics in a $45 million deal. Ample Organics’ CEO, disillusioned by the acquirer’s leadership, resigned less than two months after the acquisition. He left behind some searing criticism for his former employer, saying that “Akerna’s current leadership is unlikely to make it a preeminent leader of anything. Except, possibly, serial layoffs, customer and revenue churn, and dilutive deals that are bad for investors.”
🏢 Swing Education ∙ 🌎 SF Bay Area ∙ 👩 Unknown # of employees ∙ 🔗Source
- When the pandemic closed schools in the spring, 90% of Swing Education’s revenue disappeared, causing the startup to lay off staff. The startup has now shifted its business from matching substitute teachers with schools to matching teachers with parents looking to create learning pods. Swing’s first learning pods opened in Oakland last month.
Thanks to Layoffs.fyi intern Stephan Billingslea for contributing to this post.