Tag: Marketing

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 7/2/20

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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 coronavirus pandemic.

🏢 Katerra ∙ 🌎 SF Bay Area ∙ 👩 400 employees (7%) ∙ 🔗Source

  • A tech-driven construction company, Katerra cut 400 employees following a CEO change. The SoftBank-backed company previously laid off 240 employees in April. Katerra said then that stay-at-home orders forced the company to shut down some of its operations. TheRealDeal previously reported cases of cost overruns, delays, and cancellations in Katerra’s construction projects.

🏢 Argo AI ∙ 🌎 Munich ∙ 👩 100 employees ∙ 🔗Source

  • A self-driving car company, Argo AI laid off 100 of the 300 employees in its Munich-based Autonomous Intelligent Driving unit. Argo acquired the AID unit from Volkswagen as part of a $2.6 billion investment in Argo last year.

🏢 Bossa Nova ∙ 🌎 Pittsburgh, SF Bay Area ∙ 👩 61 employees ∙ 🔗Source

  • A maker of robots used in retail stores, Bossa Nova Robotics is terminating or furloughing 61 people. The layoffs affect its Bay Area and Pittsburgh-area staff, and are concentrated in the company’s software and operations teams. No robots were laid off.

🏢 Integrate.ai ∙ 🌎 Toronto ∙ 👩 26 employees ∙ 🔗Source

  • A startup that uses AI to improve customer interactions, Integrate.ai laid off 26 employees as part of a strategy change. The company said it would be focusing fully on its Trusted Signals Exchange offering going forward.

🏢 New Relic ∙ 🌎 Portland ∙ 👩 20 employees ∙ 🔗Source

  • A software performance monitoring tool, New Relic is combining its site engineering team with its core technology platform team. As a result, “less than 20 people” were laid off at its engineering headquarters in Portland.

🏢 Byton ∙ 🌎 SF Bay Area ∙ 👩 Unknown # employees ∙ 🔗Source

  • A Chinese electric vehicle startup, Byton said last week that it was implementing a layoff in its U.S. office. Later, it emerged that due to financial difficulties exacerbated by the pandemic, Byton will be halting operations entirely for at least six months. The company has yet to ship its first vehicle, a small crossover SUV.

🏢 G2 ∙ 🌎 Chicago ∙ 👩 Unknown # employees

  • A reviews website for business software, G2 conducted a “significant” workforce reduction, Layoffs.fyi has learned. Multiple employees, particularly in marketing, posted on LinkedIn about being laid off.
Sharethrough

Adtech startup Sharethrough lays off 18 employees

Layoff list, ,

🌎 San Francisco ∙ 👩 18 employees (22%) ∙ 🖥 Sales and marketing

Sharethrough, a digital advertising exchange, laid off 18 employees today (22%). The downsizing primarily affected the company’s sales and marketing teams.

In a blog post, Sharethrough said that its business has been impacted by COVID-19, though there were signs of recovery in June. Brands have been pulling back their advertising spending during the economic slowdown, triggering layoffs at digital advertising firms as well as media companies dependent on ad revenue.

Sharethrough and other ad exchanges may be facing other headwinds beyond economic conditions. Recent initiatives by Apple and Google to restrict data tracking in browsers and mobile apps have the potential to severely shake up an entire advertising ecosystem that depends on this data to target and attribute digital ads. While Sharethrough did not cite this as a factor for its layoff, the company previously shut down its European operations due to restrictions in ad tracking imposed by GDPR.

To help laid-off employees, Sharethrough put together an opt-in list that it shared with Layoffs.fyi (see link below 👇).

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 6/25/20

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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 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.

🏢 Intuit ∙ 🌎 SF Bay Area ∙ 👩 715 employees (7%) ∙ 🔗Source

  • The maker of TurboTax and QuickBooks, Intuit said that staff cuts were needed to better align its team structure with its new strategy of becoming an “AI-driven expert platform.” In a blog post, the company’s CEO repeatedly referred to the layoff as “re-balancing our investments,” though rebalancing typically involves bringing a portfolio back to its original allocation rather than shifting to a new one (but I digress).

🏢 GoDaddy ∙ 🌎 Austin ∙ 👩 451 employees (6%) ∙ 🔗Source

  • Web hosting and domain name provider GoDaddy is closing both of its Austin offices, which housed its GoDaddy Social business unit. 814 employees are impacted in total — of those, 40% were “offered alternate roles” in another location, 331 employees in sales were laid off, and 120 employees from fulfillment and customer success were let go.

🏢 Sonos ∙ 🌎 Los Angeles ∙ 👩 174 employees (12%) ∙ 🔗Source

  • Despite having successfully taken thousands of dollars from my bank account over the years, wireless speaker company Sonos had to lay off 12% of its staff. Sonos is also closing its retail store in New York City and 6 satellite offices.

🏢 ScaleFactor ∙ 🌎 Austin ∙ 👩 90 employees (90%) ∙ 🔗Source

  • Just months after raising a $60 million Series C, automated bookkeeping company ScaleFactor is shutting down. The company said that the pandemic had wiped out half of its sales. Half of ScaleFactor’s 100 employees were laid off immediately, and all but 10 will be let go by the end of August.

🏢 Splunk ∙ 🌎 SF Bay Area ∙ 👩 70 employees (1%) ∙ 🔗Source

  • A maker of data intelligence software, Splunk eliminated roles within its Product Management, Engineering, and PMO teams, according to an internal email reviewed by Layoffs.fyi.

🏢 Redox ∙ 🌎 Madison ∙ 👩 44 employees (25%) ∙ 🔗Source

  • An API for healthcare data, Redox explained the circumstances surrounding the layoff on its company podcast.

🏢 Atlas Obscura ∙ 🌎 New York City ∙ 👩 14 employees (25%)

  • A travel media company that specializes in obscure destinations, Atlas Obscura laid off around 14 employees, two sources told Layoffs.fyi.

Layoffs Roundup: Thurs 5/28/20

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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!

As always, the Layoffs.fyi Tracker maintains a comprehensive list of all startup layoffs since COVID-19. There’s now a new “Layoff Charts” tab too 📈! Check it out for real-time graphs of startup layoffs by month, industry, and location — all updated automatically.

And if you’re into data visualization, the team at Bloomberg made some cool graphics today using Layoffs.fyi data.

🏢 Uber India ∙ 🌎 Bengaluru ∙ 👩 600 employees (23%) ∙ 🔗Source

  • Ridesharing company Uber said that the cuts in India were part of its broader plan to reduce workforce. Laid-off employees will receive at least 10 weeks of severance and 6 months of healthcare coverage. Uber’s main competitor in India, Ola, laid off 1,400 employees last week.

🏢 Cvent ∙ 🌎 Washington D.C. ∙ 👩 400 employees (10%) ∙ 🔗Source

  • An event management platform, Cvent has been deeply impacted by the widescale decline of in-person meetings and events. Its CEO said that its customers are in many of the industries that have been hit hardest by COVID-19: event planning, hospitality, and corporate travel. The company is shifting its own flagship event in August to be completely virtual.

🏢 Instructure ∙ 🌎 Salt Lake City ∙ 👩 150 employees (12%) ∙ 🔗Source

  • A provider of learning management software, Instructure is also closing its satellite offices (including Chicago, Seattle, San Diego, and London) in favor of its Salt Lake City headquarters. Instructure was acquired by a private equity firm in March. Even though the new owner reportedly promised it wouldn’t shrink staff, it’s not too surprising that a layoff happened anyway, given the propensity of PE firms to cut costs.

🏢 Bluprint ∙ 🌎 Denver∙ 👩 137 employees (100%) ∙ 🔗Source

  • A provider of online crafts classes, Bluprint will be shutting down by the end of August. Originally named Craftsy and acquired by NBCUniversal in 2017, Bluprint’s layoffs will begin around July 22 and end when operations are closed.

🏢 Glitch ∙ 🌎 New York City ∙ 👩 18 employees (36%) ∙ 🔗Source

  • A collaborative coding platform, Glitch cited market conditions as context for the layoff and said it needed to “significantly cut operating costs” to ensure “long-term viability.” The company is offering severance pay, health insurance, and support finding a new job to laid-off employees.

🏢 Acorns ∙ 🌎 Portland ∙ 👩 Unknown # of employees ∙ 🔗Source

  • An app that lets users invest their spare change, Acorns is shutting down its Portland office and consolidating staff to its Irvine headquarters. Some employees will be moving locations, though one source tells Layoffs.fyi that others are being laid off. Acorns inherited the Portland office in 2017 after acquiring retirement savings startup Vault, and subsequently grew the office to around 30 people.

Layoffs Roundup: Thurs 5/21/20

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The number of newly-reported startup layoffs continues to decline, though each one is now affecting 3x more employees on average. This past week saw a massive layoff from Uber, alongside other notable cuts mentioned below. The total count is now up to 58,000+ startup employees laid off since the coronavirus pandemic began.

Check out the Layoffs.fyi Tracker for a comprehensive list. If you’ve seen a layoff spreadsheet for any of these companies, please let us know!

🏢 Ola ∙ 🌎 Bengaluru ∙ 👩 1,400 employees (35%) ∙ 🔗Source

  • An India-based ridesharing company, Ola said revenue has dropped by 95% in the last two months due to stay-at-home orders. Laid-off employees will receive 3 months of severance, along with “healthcare and emotional support until the end of the year.” It’s not clear who will be providing the emotional support.

🏢 Deliv ∙ 🌎 SF Bay Area ∙ 👩 669 employees (100%) ∙ 🔗Source

  • A service that enables brick-and-mortar stores to offer same-day deliveries, Deliv announced that it was shutting down operations and selling some of its technology to Target. The company is laying off at least 669 workers and will wind down its business over the next 90 days. Even though delivery businesses like Amazon, Target, and Uber Eats are surging during the pandemic, Deliv’s business depends on customers like Best Buy, Macy’s, and Walgreens, who have been severely impacted by shelter-in-place orders.

🏢 Cruise ∙ 🌎 SF Bay Area ∙ 👩 150 employees (8%) ∙ 🔗Source

  • A self-driving car startup owned by GM, Cruise becomes the most prominent (though certainly not the only) autonomous vehicle company to cut staff. AV companies like Cruise, Zoox, and Ike were already bleeding money with little revenue — now, their vehicles are also sitting idle because social distancing measures mean that backup drivers can’t be used for self-driving tests. Cruise’s layoff largely avoided touching its engineering team.

🏢 SoFi ∙ 🌎 SF Bay Area ∙ 👩 112 employees (7%) ∙ 🔗Source

  • A personal finance startup, SoFi is positioning its staffing reduction not as a layoff but as a performance-driven cut. The company implied that the employees cut were falling short of their performance expectations. One source told Layoffs.fyi that 37 engineers were affected.

🏢 Quartz ∙ 🌎 New York City ∙ 👩 80 employees (40%) ∙ 🔗Source

  • A business news site, Quartz said its layoff was focused on its advertising department, though over 20 journalists were also affected. The company is planning to transition its business model from advertising-supported to subscription-based. Quartz is led by ace journalist and former Harvard Crimson editor Zach Seward.

🏢 Integral Ad Science ∙ 🌎 New York City ∙ 👩 70 employees (10%) ∙ 🔗Source

  • An ad verification company, Integral Ad Science joins the growing number of ad tech startups (and ad-supported media businesses) confronting a broader pullback in ad spending. Similar companies that have conducted layoffs include Rubicon Project, OpenX, GumGum, TripleLift, VideoAmp, MediaMath, Sojern, and AdRoll.

🏢 Intercom ∙ 🌎 SF Bay Area ∙ 👩 39 employees ∙ 🔗Source

  • A maker of customer messaging software, Intercom is also relocating 47 roles in its marketing and R&D teams from San Francisco to Dublin, in addition to the layoff.

🏢 Divvy ∙ 🌎 Salt Lake City ∙ 👩 Unknown # of employees

  • A platform for expense reports, Divvy conducted a mass layoff on Tuesday, according to multiple LinkedIn posts. One source tells Layoffs.fyi that over 100 people were cut.
Clearbit

Clearbit conducted a layoff

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🌎 San Francisco ∙ 👩 At least 12 employees ∙ 🖥 All departments

Clearbit, a marketing company that performs customer data enrichment, conducted a layoff last week, according to multiple employee posts on LinkedIn. See link below 👇for an opt-in spreadsheet of people laid off, including several SF-based engineers.

View list of employees laid off ->

See our live Layoffs Tracker for a real-time report of all startups that have done layoffs.

Layoffs Roundup: Mon 4/6/20

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Last week we tracked 50 startup layoffs affecting over 4,000 people. The post-Coronavirus tally has now crossed 10,000 employees laid off ☹️.

Below are a few of the recent layoffs. Check our Layoffs Tracker for a comprehensive report. If you’ve seen a layoff spreadsheet for any of these companies, please let us know so we can help the affected people!

  • MindBody, which creates scheduling software for gyms, fitness studios, and spas, laid off or furloughed 700 employees. Nearly 95% of their customers are closed due to shelter-at-home orders.
    • 🌎 San Luis Obispo ∙ 👩‍💼 700 employees (35%) ∙ 🔗Source
  • Sojern, an ad-tech startup servicing travel companies, cut 300 employees, about half its staff. Travel advertising in general fell by as much as 90% in March.
    • 🌎 San Francisco ∙ 👩‍💼 300 employees (50%) ∙ 🔗Source
  • AdRoll, an ad retargeting company, laid off 174 employees. According to an employee, the Salt Lake City and New York City offices were most affected.
    • 🌎 Salt Lake City ∙ 👩‍💼 174 employees
  • Velodyne Lidar, which designs sensor systems used in driverless cars for companies like Uber, laid off 140 employees. Workers say the company is using the coronavirus as an excuse when they’ve long been planning to transfer production overseas.
    • 🌎 San Francisco ∙ 👩‍💼 140 employees ∙ 🔗Source
  • ThirdLove, a startup that sells bras and underwear, laid off 30% of its team. Other direct-to-consumer companies like Everlane and Brandless were struggling even before COVID-19 due to rising customer acquisition costs.
    • 🌎 San Francisco ∙ 👩‍💼 94 employees (35%) ∙ 🔗Source
  • Industrious, a provider of flexible office space, laid off 20% of its staff (90 employees) and enacted furloughs or reduced hours for another 10%. The company joins a growing list of modern real estate companies that have conducted layoffs, including WeWork, Sonder, and Knotel.
    • 🌎 New York City ∙ 👩‍💼 90 employees (20%) ∙ 🔗Source
  • Arrive Logistics, a freight brokerage, cut 75 employees (7%) and furloughed another 35. It cited the coronavirus outbreak’s negative impact on freight markets.
    • 🌎 Austin ∙ 👩‍💼 75 employees (7%) ∙ 🔗Source
  • Bustle Digital Group, a media company that owns Bustle, Elite Daily, and Mic, laid off 24 employees. The entire staff of The Outline, a culture site, was let go as part of the layoff.
    • 🌎 New York City ∙ 👩‍💼 24 employees ∙ 🔗Source
  • The Wing, a co-working space for women, laid off half of its headquarters staff. It said it saw 95% of its revenue “disappear overnight.”
    • 🌎 New York City ∙ 👩‍💼 50% of employees ∙ 🔗Source

Layoffs Roundup: Thurs 3/26/20

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Coronavirus-related tech layoffs continue to pile up this week, particularly in real estate and travel. Check out our Layoffs Tracker for a comprehensive, real-time report. If you’ve seen a layoff spreadsheet for any of these companies, please let us know!

Real estate

  • Sonder, which offers short-term apartment rentals, laid off or furloughed 400 employees. Bookings are down 20% at the company’s 5,000 apartments.
    • 🌎 San Francisco ∙ 👩‍💼 400 employees (33%) ∙ 🔗The Real Deal
  • Zeus Living, which rents out furnished apartments on a monthly basis to business travelers, laid off 80 employees.
    • 🌎 San Francisco ∙ 👩‍💼 80 employees (30%) ∙ 🔗Crunchbase News
  • The Guild, which offers short-term stays at luxury apartments, laid off 38 employees.
    • 🌎 Austin ∙ 👩‍💼 38 employees (22%) ∙ 🔗Austin Inno

Travel

  • TripActions, whose software helps companies manage corporate travel, laid off 300 workers. The layoffs primarily affected customer support, recruiting, and sales. Employees were notified of the layoff via a group Zoom call.
    • 🌎 Palo Alto ∙ 👩‍💼 300 employees (25%) ∙ 🔗TechCrunch
  • Cabin, a luxury sleeper-bus service, laid off an unknown (but likely small) number of employees.
    • 🌎 San Francisco ∙ 👩‍💼 Unknown # affected ∙ 🔗The Information

Other industries

  • Leafly, an online resource on cannabis, laid off 91 employees.
    • 🌎 Seattle ∙ 👩‍💼 91 employees (50%) ∙ 🔗GeekWire
  • Foodsby, which delivers restaurant food to office buildings, laid off 80 people. Demand is down since restaurants are closing and customers are no longer going into the office.
    • 🌎Minneapolis ∙ 👩‍💼 80 employees (67%) ∙ 🔗Minne Inno
  • Rangle, a development agency, initiated a temporary layoff for 78 staffers. Rangle’s clients are paring back spending due to the coronavirus pandemic.
    • 🌎 Toronto ∙ 👩‍💼 78 employees (30%) ∙ 🔗BetaKit
  • OutboundEngine, which creates marketing software for small businesses, laid off 52 employees.
    • 🌎 Austin ∙ 👩‍💼 52 employees (28%) ∙ 🔗BizJournals
  • Wonderschool, which helps people start their own in-home preschools or daycares, laid off 50 employees. Shelter-in-place orders means that parents are keeping their kids at home.
    • 🌎 San Francisco ∙ 👩‍💼 50 employees (75%) ∙ 🔗EdSurge
  • SpotHero, an app that helps people find parking spots, laid off an unknown number of employees. Urban parking isn’t a problem when people are staying at home.
    • 🌎 Chicago ∙ 👩‍💼 Unknown # affected ∙ 🔗Chicago Inno
  • Eight Sleep, an online mattress retailer, laid off 20% of staff.