Tag: Consumer

Layoffs Roundup: Thurs 9/3/20

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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.

🏢 Big Fish Games ∙ 🌎 Seattle ∙ 👩 250 employees ∙ 🔗Source

  • Big Fish Games, a developer of mobile and social casino games, laid off 250 employees despite other gaming companies reporting a surge in sales during the pandemic. Some point to a recent $155 million legal settlement, the result of allegations that the company’s games constituted illegal gambling in Washington, as a reason for the layoff.  For its part, Big Fish Games explained its decision using phrases like “refactoring operations” and “reinforce the company’s positioning for growth.”

🏢 GoBear ∙ 🌎 Singapore ∙ 👩 22 employees (11%) ∙ 🔗Source

  • GoBear, an online financial services “supermarket,” laid off 11% of its employees in offices across the globe. The company now plans to focus on its growth areas of digital lending and insurance brokerage services.  [As an aside, GoBear feels like an ominous name choice for a financial services startup…maybe “bear market” means something different in Southeast Asia?]

🏢 MakeMyTrip ∙ 🌎 New Delhi ∙ 👩 350 employees (10%) ∙ 🔗Source

  • MakeMyTrip, India’s largest online travel booking company, saw revenue slashed to zero during the pandemic. Its founder joked that the company’s Q2 earnings call should’ve been called a “lack of earnings call.” As a result, the company laid off 350 employees, or 10% of its staff, in June. 

🏢 Awok ∙ 🌎 Dubai ∙ 👩 100% of employees ∙ 🔗Source

  • Dubai-based e-commerce startup Awok shut down a year after raising a $30 million Series A. Employees have reported receiving no pay since January and blame company leadership for the shutdown; Awok’s website cites the pandemic as the reason for closing shop.

🏢 kununu ∙ 🌎 Boston ∙ 👩 Unknown # of employees ∙ 🔗Source

  • Kununu, a platform that lets employees rate their employer, discontinued its U.S. operations and shut down its Boston office. Headquartered in Vienna, the company was bought by Linkedin competitor XING for $12.3 million in 2013.

Thanks to Layoffs.fyi intern Stephan Billingslea for contributing to this post.

Layoffs Roundup: Thurs 8/27/20

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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.

🏢 Salesforce ∙ 🌎 San Francisco Bay Area ∙ 👩 ~1,000 employees (2%) ∙ 🔗Source

  • Salesforce, the CRM and enterprise cloud software giant, laid off about 1,000 employees (2%) less than a day after reporting blowout earnings. In March, Salesforce’s CEO pledged to its workforce “Ohana” that the company would not have any “significant” layoffs for 90 days. Recent layoffs affected sales and customer support, despite a 29% rise in revenue and 26% increase in share price. Affected workers were given 60 days to find another role in the firm.

🏢 Hipcamp ∙ 🌎 San Francisco Bay Area ∙ 👩 ~60% of employees ∙ 🔗Source

  • Hipcamp, an Airbnb for camping stays, laid off around 60% of its employees back in April, TechCrunch reported today. More recently though, Hipcamp’s business has rebounded now that stay-at-home orders have eased and travelers prefer the safety of the outdoors. Hipcamp has rehired some of its laid-off employees and is looking to expand its team further.

🏢 Docly ∙ 🌎 London ∙ 👩 8 employees (80%) ∙ 🔗Source

  • Telemedicine startup Docly, a spinoff of Swedish digital health provider Mik Doctor, stopped operating in the UK. 8 employees were laid off as a direct result of restructuring, as Docly will refocus on becoming a technology supplier for companies like Mik Doctor in the future.

🏢 Spaces ∙ 🌎 Los Angeles ∙ 👩 Unknown # of employees ∙ 🔗Source

  • Spaces, a VR entertainment startup, was recently acquired by Apple, who has been buying VR teams to develop its own VR headset. When the news broke, Spaces’ CEO noted that the company had to lay off an undisclosed number of employees at the beginning of the pandemic and take out a PPP loan to “keep the lights on.”

🏢 Streamsets ∙ 🌎 San Francisco Bay Area ∙ 👩 Unknown # of employees ∙ 🔗Source

  • Streamsets, a data integration startup with $76 million of funding, laid off an unknown number of employees in order to survive the first wave of the pandemic. The layoffs came days after the company won a best workplaces award. The company cut R&D and some recent hires, saying that it needed to give up on “inefficient growth.”

🏢 Mapify ∙ 🌎 Berlin ∙ 👩 Unknown # of employees ∙ 🔗Source

  • Mapify, an app for planning travel experiences, laid off “several team members,” citing the pandemic’s continued disruption on travel. The startup most recently raised a $1 million seed round in 2018.

Thanks to Layoffs.fyi intern Stephan Billingslea for contributing to this post.

Layoffs Roundup: Thurs 8/20/20

Roundup, , ,

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.

🏢 Shopify ∙ 🌎 Ottawa ∙ 👩 30-50 employees ∙ 🔗Source

  • An e-commerce platform that allows anyone to set up an online store, Shopify has seen revenue double YoY during the pandemic. However, due to the company’s decision to adopt remote work permanently, at least 30 employees supporting in-office workers were laid off. BetaKit reports that some laid-off employees complained about poor severance packages and being denied transitions to other roles.

🏢 DJI ∙ 🌎 Shenzhen ∙ 👩 ~120 employees ∙ 🔗Source

  • Chinese drone manufacturer DJI began cutting its global sales and marketing teams in March as sales dropped and political pressures surged. The US Department of Interior recently grounded its fleet of DJI drones over security concerns, and DJI’s mobile app has been accused of collecting more user data than needed. Reuters estimates that over 120 employees have been laid off; the company denied the number but declined to provide a more accurate count.

🏢 InVision ∙ 🌎 New York City ∙ 👩 40-60 employees

  • Digital product design platform InVisionApp laid off 40 to 60 employees over the past couple of weeks, sources told Layoffs.fyi. InVision most recently raised a $115 million Series F in 2018 that valued the company at $1.9 billion.

🏢 Glossier ∙ 🌎 New York City ∙ 👩 Unknown # employees ∙ 🔗Source

  • Make-up and skincare startup Glossier previously closed its three physical stores in March and furloughed its retail workers in June. The D2C beauty company is now laying off its retail workers, as it does not expect to reopen its stores this year. New York and Los Angeles workers will receive 12 weeks of severance and healthcare coverage through October. Glossier did not lay off any corporate employees and will continue to focus on e-commerce, its main revenue source.

Thanks to Layoffs.fyi intern Stephan Billingslea for contributing to this post.

Mozilla

Mozilla lays off 250 employees; launches talent directory

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🌎 Multiple locations ∙ 👩 250 employees (25%) ∙ 🖥 Multiple departments

Mozilla Corporation, best known for developing the Firefox web browser, laid off 250 employees globally. The pandemic’s toll on revenue also caused the company to close its Taipei operations.

Going forward, Mozilla will shift its focus to new revenue-generating products, such as its VPN service, and other security and privacy products. It plans to reduce its investment in developer tools, internal tooling, and platform feature development.

Once the world’s second-most popular browser, Firefox has seen its market share dwindle over the past decade. Its primary revenue model, search engine ads, is susceptible to an economic downswing that curtails global ad spending. In addition, Firefox’s U.S. revenue comes from a recently-extended deal with Google, making Mozilla financially dependent on its rival.

In conjunction with the layoff, Mozilla’s CEO told staff that the company would be creating an opt-in talent directory, to be launched next Monday, August 17. However, the Mozilla layoff list appears to already be live, with over 50 former employees featured (see link 👇).

Mozilla is giving laid-off employees severance pay equivalent to base pay through December 31, along with health benefits through the end of the year.

UPDATE: The Mozilla talent directory is now officially live with over 120 entries.

View list of employees laid off ->

Our live Layoffs Tracker has a real-time report of all startups that have done layoffs.

Layoffs Roundup: Thurs 7/16/20

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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.

In case you missed it — we recently looked at usage data from the Layoffs.fyi List to see what types of laid-off employees were getting the most attention from recruiters. Among the findings: there are 4x as many searches for laid-off engineers as there are for the next most popular function (design). You can read the full analysis here.

🏢 OnDeck ∙ 🌎 New York City ∙ 👩 20% of employees ∙ 🔗Source

  • Small business lending company OnDeck laid off 20% of its staff, two sources told Layoffs.fyi. Finance blog deBanked attempted to email OnDeck’s head of corporate communications for comment, but received an auto-reply saying that he was no longer with the company.

🏢 Yelp ∙ 🌎SF Bay Area ∙ 👩 63 employees ∙ 🔗Source

  • Local reviews site Yelp plans to bring back “nearly all” of the 1,100 employees it furloughed in April, citing “cautious optimism” about the economic recovery. However, 63 employees will be laid off as a result of Yelp’s decision to keep its offices closed into next year.

🏢 Optimizely ∙ 🌎 SF Bay Area ∙ 👩 60 employees (15%) ∙ 🔗Source

  • A maker of A/B testing software, Optimizely laid off 60 employees (15%). Laid-off employees will receive severance pay and six months of COBRA (through 2020), and will be allowed to keep their laptop.

🏢 Vox Media ∙ 🌎 Washington D.C. ∙ 👩 Unknown # employees ∙ 🔗Source

  • Vox Media, the owner of New York Magazine, The Verge, SBNation and Eater, previously furloughed 100 employees in April. Vox is planning to permanently lay off many of those employees, and may cut additional jobs as well. The company plans to miss its 2020 forecast by 25%, due in part to the pandemic’s impact on its coverage areas of sports and real estate.

🏢 Skyscanner ∙ 🌎 Edinburgh ∙ 👩 300 employees (20%) ∙ 🔗Source

  • A flight comparison website based in Scotland, Skyscanner plans to close or scale back many of its global offices outside the U.K. The company’s revenues “have been hit significantly,” and it expects a full recovery to be “several quarters or possibly years away” due to the pandemic’s disruption on travel.

Layoffs Roundup: Thurs 7/9/20

Roundup, , , , , ,

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 coronavirus pandemic.

🏢 Oyo USA ∙ 🌎 Dallas ∙ 👩 Hundreds of employees ∙ 🔗Source

  • A global lodging company headquartered in India, Oyo permanently laid off a “large majority” of the U.S. employees it furloughed in April. A laid-off employee tells Layoffs.fyi that 90% of the U.S. team was affected, likely numbering hundreds of people. In an internal memo, Oyo’s COO said that its U.S. business is “showing positive signs of recovery.” However, U.S. revenue is still 25% below January’s levels, with global revenue only at ~30% of pre-COVID levels.

🏢 Funding Circle ∙ 🌎San Francisco ∙ 👩 85 employees ∙ 🔗Source

  • A London-based lending platform for small businesses, Funding Circle will lay off 85 U.S. employees to help its U.S. business move towards profitability. The company’s San Francisco technology development team will be consolidated to the U.K., and its sales and marketing operations will be moved to Denver.

🏢 The Wing ∙ 🌎 New York City ∙ 👩 56 employees ∙ 🔗Source

  • A co-working space for women, The Wing laid off an additional 56 employees after cutting half of its team in April. The company’s workspaces continue to be closed due to the pandemic, threatening its primary source of revenue. Laid-off employees will receive two months of severance pay along with extended healthcare benefits.

🏢 Hired ∙ 🌎 San Francisco ∙ 👩 Unknown # employees ∙ 🔗Source

  • A hiring marketplace that matches tech companies with job candidates, Hired is the latest recruiting startup to conduct a layoff during the pandemic. The number of employees laid off is unknown, though one Layoffs.fyi source says that at least 5 engineers and possibly up to 50 employees total were affected.

🏢 Kongregate ∙ 🌎 SF Bay Area ∙ 👩 12 employees ∙ 🔗Source

  • A video game publisher and web gaming portal, Kongregate laid off 12 employees as part of a strategy shift. The company will be focusing more on developing games internally rather than publishing Flash-based games made by others. Kongregate apologized that some employees found out about their layoff through a direct deposit notification.

🏢 Havenly ∙ 🌎 Denver ∙ 👩 5 employees ∙ 🔗Source

  • An online interior design service, Havenly laid off 5 full-time workers and some temp workers in the spring. However, the company has begun hiring again in recent weeks, due to rising demand from people wanting to improve their living space during shelter-in-place.
StubHub

StubHub shifts 200 of its furloughed employees into permanent layoffs

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🌎 San Francisco ∙ 👩 200 employees ∙ 🖥 Multiple departments

Back in March when the coronavirus first became a pandemic, online ticket marketplace StubHub furloughed 450 employees (2/3 of its North American workforce). Now, the company says that 200 of those employees will be permanently laid off, as live events continue to be shut down.

Due to their increased risk of disease transmission, mass gatherings like concerts and sports games will be one of the last activities to be reopened. It follows that ticket marketplaces like StubHub are among the tech businesses worst-affected by the coronavirus. Just weeks before the pandemic, Viagogo agreed to acquire StubHub from eBay for $4 billion, a deal which Forbes recently dubbed the “Worst. Deal. Ever.” due to its unfortunate timing.

In the wake of the restructuring, the company created an official StubHub talent directory “for recruiters and hiring managers to easily sort through the skills and experience of this community” (see link 👇).

The StubHub layoff list currently contains 72 ex-employees, primarily in San Francisco.

View list of employees laid off ->

Our live Layoffs Tracker has a real-time report of all startups that have done layoffs.

Layoffs Roundup: Thurs 6/18/20

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Below is a recap of the layoffs from this past week. Check out the Layoffs.fyi Tracker for a complete list of all startup layoffs during the coronavirus pandemic.

In case you missed it, our new Layoffs.fyi Severance Tracker tracks the details of severance packages offered by startups that have done layoffs. You can see how much each company gave in severance pay and healthcare coverage, whether they made any adjustments to employee stock options, and more.

On the whole, our analysis shows that the severance packages in COVID-19 layoffs have been more generous than in a typical employee termination — with some offering as much as 20 weeks of pay!

🏢 PaisaBazaar ∙ 🌎 Gurugram ∙ 👩 1,500 employees (50%) ∙ 🔗Source

  • India’s largest online marketplace for lending products, PaisaBazaar’s layoff mostly affected its operations and business acquisitions teams. Paisabazaar has seen demand for new loans drop by almost 90% in some segments. Lenders have become more selective about who they approve, leading to fewer new loans originated. U.S.-based Credit Sesame and LendingClub have suffered from a similar trend here.

🏢 Grab ∙ 🌎 Singapore ∙ 👩 360 employees (5%) ∙ 🔗Source

  • The largest ride-hailing startup in Southeast Asia, Grab is the latest in the category to cut staff, following layoffs at Uber (U.S.), Lyft (U.S.), Ola (India), and Careem (Middle East). Grab mentioned it would also be sunsetting non-core projects and redeploying staff to focus on its delivery business.

🏢 SynapseFI ∙ 🌎 SF Bay Area∙ 👩 63 employees (48%) ∙ 🔗Source

  • A startup that provides banking infrastructure to other fintech companies, SynapseFI also said it was shifting its customer-facing operations to San Antonio. Additionally, the company plans to move upmarket to serve larger enterprises, suggesting that its customer base of smaller startups proved to be too risky amid the coronavirus pandemic. In December, the company and its CEO were sued for gender and age discrimination.
Stockwell Logo

Stockwell AI is shutting down on July 1

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🌎 San Francisco Bay Area ∙ 👩 Company shutdown (100%) ∙ 🖥 All departments

A smart vending machine startup, Stockwell AI says it will be shutting down on July 1. The vending machine industry has suffered business losses of up to 90%, due to sanitation concerns during COVID-19 and the trend of people staying at home.

Stockwell has a layoff list (see link 👇) that dates back to February, but it’s unclear how many of the folks on this list are still looking for jobs.

View list of employees laid off ->

Our live Layoffs Tracker has a real-time report of all startups that have done layoffs.

Layoffs Roundup: Thurs 6/4/20

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Here’s a recap of the startup layoffs from this past week. If you’ve seen a layoff spreadsheet for any of these companies, please let us know!

See the Layoffs.fyi Tracker for a comprehensive list of all startup layoffs since COVID-19.

🏢 Stitch Fix ∙ 🌎 SF Bay Area ∙ 👩 1,400 employees (18%) ∙ 🔗Source

  • An online personal styling service, Stitch Fix said it will lay off 1,400 stylist employees in California between now and the end of September. It plans to replace these employees by hiring 2,000 stylists in lower-cost cities over the coming year. Laid-off employees will have the opportunity to relocate; those who don’t will receive 2 weeks or more of severance, extended healthcare, and a bonus for staying through the transition period.

🏢 TrueCar ∙ 🌎 Los Angeles ∙ 👩 219 employees (30%) ∙ 🔗Source

  • An automotive pricing website, TrueCar says the cuts come in anticipation of the termination of its revenue-sharing partnership with USAA. The timing and scope of the layoff was further accelerated by COVID-19. Laid-off employees will receive 13 weeks of base pay plus 1 week for each additional year of service beyond the first, along with healthcare coverage through 2020.

🏢 Monzo ∙ 🌎 London ∙ 👩 120 employees (8%) ∙ 🔗Source

  • A London-based digital bank, Monzo is laying off 120 of its U.K. employees. This comes on top of the 165 employees it laid off when it shut down its Las Vegas customer support office in April. The company also previously furloughed 295 U.K. employees. As consumers pull back on spending, Monzo generates less revenue from the interchange fees on its debit card products.

🏢 Kitty Hawk ∙ 🌎 SF Bay Area ∙ 👩 “Most of” a 70-person team ∙ 🔗Source

  • Backed by Google co-founder Larry Page, Kitty Hawk is shutting down its electric flying car initiative and laying off most of that team’s 70 employees. However, the company is still working on a different autonomous electric aircraft initiative. Laid-off employees will receive at least 20 weeks of severance based on tenure, along with health insurance coverage through the end of the year.

🏢 Acorns ∙ 🌎 Portland∙ 👩 55 employees ∙ 🔗Source

  • Last week, Portland Business Journals reported that Acorns was shutting down its Portland office. A source tells Layoffs.fyi that over 55 employees were laid off as well, and that the support team was offshored. According to the source, Acorns closed both its Portland and Delaware offices and laid off most of its staff in New York.

🏢 Rivian ∙ 🌎 Detroit ∙ 👩 40 employees (2%) ∙ 🔗Source

  • An electric vehicle company, Rivian confirmed it laid off 40 employees in its Plymouth, Michigan office. One laid-off employee tells Layoffs.fyi that the actual number may be higher. In another example of differing accounts, The Verge reported that “former employees say they believe the cuts were related to the stresses of the COVID-19 pandemic, though Rivian says they were performance-based.”

🏢 SpotHero ∙ 🌎 Chicago ∙ 👩 40 employees (21%)∙ 🔗Source

  • An app that helps people find parking spots, SpotHero has now reduced its staff by 70 employees across two rounds of layoffs since March. Parking solutions are in less demand now that people are staying at home.

🏢 Fundbox ∙ 🌎 SF Bay Area ∙ 👩 14 employees (15%) ∙ 🔗Source

  • A small business lending company, Fundbox announced a $20 million extension to its $326 million Series C in conjunction with the layoff. The company is also cutting management salaries by an unspecified amount. Fundbox says the COVID-19 crisis has harmed small and medium-sized businesses, which form the core of the company’s customer base.

🏢 MakerBot ∙ 🌎 New York City ∙ 👩 12 employees

  • A creator of 3D printers, MakerBot laid off a dozen employees amid declining revenues caused by school closures, according to an internal memo viewed by Layoffs.fyi. MakerBot’s layoff was part of a broader staffing cut by parent company Stratasys, which is laying off 240 employees in total.