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Despite being darlings of the post-2020 pandemic era, tech companies and startups are facing a financial reckoning in 2022--and could serve as a bellwether for the broader economy.
Editor's note: This post will be updated regularly with new information. Last updated on July 19, 2022.
In the depths of winter, startup land remained red-hot. Venture capitalists shoveled $71 billion into startups in the first quarter of 2022, off just slightly from last year’s highs, per PitchBook data. Stock markets climbed ever-higher, feeding the coffers of publicly traded tech juggernauts. Employers scrambled to fill open positions, as workers quit en masse and demanded higher pay and better conditions.
But by April, it all started crashing down as soaring prices and interest rates rocked the economy. The shift to austerity began with public tech companies: Netflix’s market capitalization cratered by $50 billion after it reported diminishing subscriber counts for the first time in a decade, and days later, the streamer eliminated dozens of jobs. Amazon, Alphabet and Tesla each saw their valuations plummet by at least 20%. Startup leaders began bracing themselves for turbulence ahead, once again weighing layoffs as a means of controlling burn rates and attracting new capital. The greatest risks might lie at startups that grew precipitously during the pandemic to meet unexpected demand booms.
The Org’s team of journalists is tracking the latest layoffs at tech companies large and small. The list is in reverse chronological order, with newer announcements at the top, and we’ll be updating it regularly:
TikTok is beginning to restructure its business, a move that includes layoffs, according to Wired. The cuts are expected to impact the Chinese social media app’s business units in the US, EU, and UK. The company is also halting some team expansion plans. TikTok spokesperson Anna Sopel told Wired that the tech company often makes staffing adjustments to support its mission and that "There are a small number of roles within the operations and marketing teams that shifted in focus, that can't be called a 'company-wide restructure.'" An internal source cited by Wired claimed that the number of layoffs would be less than 100.
Video startup Vimeo trimmed its 1,200-person workforce by 6%, per a July 18 blog post by CEO Anjali Sud. Laid off workers will get at least three months of severance pay. The company went public in May 2021, and its stock price has fallen nearly 90% in the fourteen months since -- from about $57 per share upon IPO to $6 today.
As its stock price flounders, Shopify has quietly laid off about 50 workers since April, the Globe and Mail said in early July. The layoffs have hindered a planned companywide pay overhaul, intended to role out this month. It also canceled fall internships and paused recruiting.
On July 13, San Francsico-based creator merchandising startup Spring laid off some employees and executives across teams including growth and marketing, according to Insider. (The exact number of layd off workesr is unknown.) The company launched in 2011 and was formerly known as "Teespring."
Ahead of a possible IPO, Tonal, a home fitness Peloton competitor, dismissed 35% of its 750-person workforce, CNBC reported. The startup has raised about $450 million from investors, including tennis champion Serena Williams and Amazon's Alexa fund.
Fabric, a micro-fulfillment unicorn with a focus on warehouse robotics and automation, has laid off 40% of its 300 employees. The news, first reported by TechCrunch, also revealed that COO Avi “Jack” Jacoby has replaced founding CEO Elram Goren at the top of the company. The New York-based startup is valued at more than $1 billion and most recently raised a $200 million Series C funding round in 2021.
instant delivery startup GoPuff cut 10% of its global workforce, about 1500 U.S.-based corporate and warehouse employees, Bloomberg reported. GoPuff is also closing dozens of its warehouses in an effort to reel in spending.
The Redmond, Wash.-based tech giant said on July 12 that it cut hundreds of workers across groups--less than 1% of its 181,000-person global workforce. Microsoft said the layoffs were "a result of a strategic realignment," and untethered to macroeconomic conditions that have dragged its stock down 22% since January.
Room service delivery startup Butler Hospitality dissolved in mid-May, leaving its roughly 1,000 workers without jobs, a TechCrunch investigation found in July. Founded in 2016 as a ghost kitchen operation, Butler had raised north of $50 million before its sudden demise.
More EV layoffs: Pittsburgh-based Argo AI laid off 150 people (5% of its global workforce) and began slowing hiring on July 7, per TechCrunch. Argo is buliding autonomous self-driving vehicle technology, and it's backed by Ford and Volkswagen.
Next Insurance, a California-based insurtech firm with a $4 billion valuation, laid off about 150 workers, or 17% of its workforce, on July 7, per Insurance Business America. The layoffs will affect workers in U.S. and Israel.
There's trouble at the blue bird company. Elon Musk is backing out of his $44 billion takeover deal--and on July 7, the company laid off 30% of its talent acquisition team, per The Wall Street Journal. The layoffs impacted less than 100 employees.
U.S.- and Isreal-based event software startup Bizzabo reduced its headcount by 30% on July 6, representing about 120 jobs lost, Skift Meetings said. The Series E company has raised about $200 million to date.
Discount brokerage eToro reportedly laid off 100 employees on July 6, just one week after calling off a SPAC deal that would've included a cash infusion of several hundreds of dollars. The layoffs represented 6% of the Israel-based company's global workforce.
Brazilian proptech unicorn laid off 380 employees (a 12% reduction) on July 5, just three months after it cut 159 jobs, TechCrunch said. The company is worth $2.9 billion and counts a16z, Tiger Global and other blue chip VCs as investors.
Virtual after-school enrichment program startup Outschool slashed 18% of its workforce, or 31 employees, on July 5, per TechCrunch. The company is valued at $3 billion following a $110 million Series D round in October 2021.
540 employees at Gorillas' Italian operation were laid off on July 3, according to Retail Food Italy. It's the latest blow to the nascent "instant" grocery delivery industry; Gorillas also laid off 300 workers from its Berlin HQ in May.
Crypto winter continues. American-Israeli crypto lender Celsius laid off 150 employees, Calcalist reported on July 3. The startup, valued at $3 billion, also alarmed onlookers by pausing withdrawals last month.
Ahead of a looming vehicle production deadline, EV startup Canoo has laid off nearly 60 workers so far this year, Insider reported in early July. The company continues to hire.
The short-term rental startup shuttered operations on June 30, per Short Term Rentalz. 85 workers lost their jobs at the WanderJaunt, which had raised about $25 million from VCs like Founders Fund and Khosla Ventures.
Mobile retail store startup Enjoy filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and laid off 400 U.K.-based workers (18% of its workforce) on June 30, according to Bloomberg. The company went public via SPAC less than a year ago.
Nate, a shopping startup, has laid off at least 30 of its nearly 150 employees, The Information reported on June 30. “Capital is expensive, both debt and equity. This means we need to be more selective and conservative with the company’s spending plan, which includes talent," Nate CEO Albert Saniger reportedly told staffers. A previous report from The Information found that Nate, which bills itself as an “artificial intelligence startup” that uses AI to autofill customer information for $1 per transaction, did not disclose to at least some potential investors its reliance on manual data entry.
Gaming company Nianticis laying off up to 90 workers (8% of its workforce) and canceling four projects, per Bloomberg. The company, which developed the popular Pokemon GO game, raised $300 million in late 2021.
Elon Musk's electric vehicle company has made headlines for laying off 200 employees in its Autopilot division, the unit behind its self-driving technology. The cuts, which mainly impacted hourly workers, come as Musk shutters a Tesla facility in California and build on broader news of slashes to the company's payroll. Musk announced a round of layoffs earlier this month affecting 10% of the company's salaried positions.
Newsletter startup Substack laid off 13 of its 90 employees, or 14% of its staff, on Wednesday, the New York Times reported. Affected staff members included human resources and writer support functions. The cuts will allow Substack to continue funding its own operations from its own revenue without raising additional funding in an increasingly difficult funding market.
StockX laid off 8% of its more than 1,500-person workforce, or about 120 people, The Information reported Tuesday. The company cited concerns over inflation and economic uncertainty that have impacted consumer spending. “The macroeconomic challenges currently impacting our global economy continue to affect consumer behavior, and hit businesses of all shapes and sizes. StockX is not immune to these challenges, and while our business continues to grow, the current climate calls for us to make adjustments. As a result, we made the difficult but prudent decision to reduce our workforce,” the company said in a statement to The Information.
UiPath, a company offering an end-to-end platform for automation, is cutting 5% of its roughly 4,200-person workforce as part of a restructing plan, it said in an SEC filing, as reported by CNBC. The layoffs aren't related to market conditions, a spokesperson told CNBC. “In the context of ongoing business prioritization, UiPath is undertaking a restructuring action that will primarily focus on the effectiveness of our go-to-market organization,” the spokesperson said.
Singapore-based crypto exchange Bybit is laying off "20% to 30%, with some partial layoffs as high as 50%" of its 2000-person workforce, according to crypto reporter James Wu. “Bybit is highly dependent on professionalism and rapid execution capabilities. We are exploring a way to remove overlapping functions and build smaller but more agile teams to improve our efficiency. Starting from this week, some of the functions and roles will be reviewed to ensure we stay focused and agile,” the company later said in a statement.
Seven-year-old education startup MasterClass slashed its workforce by 20%, leading to around 120 people losing their jobs. CEO David Rogier blamed "the worsening macro environment" in a tweet on June 22.
Netflix laid off 300 workers on June 23, about 3% of its global workforce. The streamer is already on its third recent wave of layoffs: In mid-May, it laid off some 150 employees across the company, and in late April, it shuttered its editorial arm Tudum just five months after it launched.
Boston-based Notarize laid off 25% of its mostly remote staff on June 15, which amounts to more than 100 workers, per Boston Business Journal. The Series D startup is valued at $760 million and is backed by Google's growth fund CapitalG and other well-known VCs. Notably, it employed more than dozen lobbyists to convince states to allow digital notarization.
Toronto-based Wealthsimple is the latest fintech to slash staff. Valued at $4 billion last year, the startup cut 13% of its workforce--159 employees--on June 15. "Volatility works both ways, and we’re seeing the other side of it now as the pandemic market conditions unwind," wrote CEO Michael Katchen in a blog post.
Real estate brokerage Compass cut 10% of its workforce as rising interest rates have led to a U.S. housing market slowdown. The layoffs affect about 450 full-time Compass employees, and not real estate agents.
Real estate brokerage Redfin is letting go of around 8% of its staff or 6%, including RentPath and Bay Equity workers, the company announced in a blog post Tuesday. May demand fell 17% below expectations, CEO Glenn Kelman said in the announcement. "We don’t have enough work for our agents and support staff, and fewer sales leaves us with less money for headquarters projects," he added.
On June 14, the cryptocurrency exchange laid off 18% of its workers, amounting to about 1,100 jobs lost. In an early morning blog post, CEO Brian Armstrong blamed the economy and admitted "we grew too quickly." Coinbase's layoffs come a month after it froze hiring indefinitely and rescinded job offers.
BlockFi, which offers crypto-backed loans and bevy of other bitcoin-related products, slashed its headcount by 20% on June 13--affecting roughly 170 of its 850 employees. In a blog post, cofounders Zac Prince and Flori Marquez echoed a now-familiar sentiment: "Like many others in the tech industry, we have been impacted by the dramatic shift in macroeconomic conditions worldwide," they wrote.
Online rental startup Zumper slashed 15 percent of its roughly 300-person staff June 10, The Real Deal reported. The cuts at the Bay Area-based company mainly happened in sales, customer service, and the art department.
Digital banking app Albert laid off at least 20 employees from its 250-person workforce on Friday, June 10, per Dot.LA. The Los Angeles-based startup counted CapitalG and General Atlantic as investors, and it most recently raised a $100 million round in January 2021.
On June 10, Crypto.com became the latest cryptocurrency exchange to lay off employees, Blockworks reported. About 260 staffers, including some senior personnel, were affected in the 5% workforces reductions. The company counts Lebron James as a spokesperson, and it recently bought the naming rights to Los Angeles' famous Staples Center stadium.
One of Europe's largest car retailers, Cazoo, is laying off nearly 750 workers, or about 15% of its workforce. "It is expected that the combination of these initiatives will result in cash savings to the company’s budget of over £200m during the period from June 1, 2022 to December 31, 2023 with approximately 750 roles being impacted across the business,” the company said in a statement.
Online personal styling service Stitch Fix is laying off 15% of its salaried workers, or about 330 people, CNBC reported. The company said it expects to save between $40 million to $60 million in fiscal year 2023 with the job cuts, which are mainly happening in corporate roles and styling leadership positions.
Atlanta-based, Softbank-backed privacy management software company OneTrust let go of 25% of its workforce, or about 950 people, the company announced on June 9. “I know this news is surprising, especially as you heard last month that the business is on track with record quarters and increasing customer demand,” CEO Kabir Barday wrote. “However, capital markets sentiment shifted to a more balanced approach between growth and profitability, and at this time, we have decided the best course of action is to reorganize to position OneTrust for continued long-term success.”
Seattle trucking marketplace software startup Convoy laid off 7% of its staff on June 9, GeekWire reported. The layoffs affect about 90 employees. In April, Convoy raised a $260 million investment round at a $3.8 billion valuation.
Hospitality company Sonder laid off 21 percent of its corporate roles and seven percent of its frontline roles, including its CTO, Skift reported. Sonder began trading publicly in January after merging with a SPAC (special purpose acquisition company). Shares have plunged more than 80 percent so far in 2022.
Identity verification company ID.me, valued at $1.47 billion, laid off employees after having a growth spurt and gaining contracts with the IRS and unemployment agencies during the pandemic, Insider reported. "While ID.me has experienced tremendous growth, we are not immune from the difficult market conditions that have negatively affected the tech industry," CEO Blake Hall said in an email obtained by Insider. "To remain in control of our future, we must reorient the business around core products and establish an organic path to profitability."
Electric scooter and bike startup Bird is reportedly cutting 23% of its workforce, which could affect nearly 140 employees. It's more trouble for the Los Angeles-based enterprise, which also laid off about 30% of staff at the start of the pandemic. Bird's stock price has falled nearly 80% since it went public in November, with shares now trading at roughly $5 apiece.
Email client Superhuman cut 22% of its workforce, or 23 employees, CEO Rahul Vohra announced in a tweet on June 3. "We are doing all we can to support them, including generous severance, mental health support, health insurance throughout the year, and job search assistance," he added in a follow up tweet. He also offered to help those laid off to find a new job.
The audio-only app that boomed during the pandemic and was a venture capital darling terminated a "handful of roles" on June 3, Bloomberg reported. The cuts were part of a broader restructuring as Clubhouse scales back areas it had previously focused on, such as news and sports.
The $800 billion electric carmaker is laying off 10% of staff and pause all hiring, Reuters reported on June 3. In an email to the company, CEO Elon Musk wrote that he has "a super bad feeling about the economy." Tesla has regularly slashed its workforce over the past few years in an effort to conserve cash, including a 7% reduction in 2019.
Less than three months after raising $125 million in a Series E round, insurtech Policygenius laid off about 25% of its staff, or around 170 employees, TechCrunch reported. "As with many companies, the sudden and dramatic shift in the economy has forced us to adapt our strategy," Jennifer Fitzgerald, CEO and co-founder of Policygenius said in a statement. "After careful consideration, we announced the difficult and necessary decision to reduce the size of our workforce."
Food52's content arm laid off about 21 people on June 2, according to the food publisher and home goods e-commerce website's food editorial lead. Those remaining on Food52's editorial operation are are having their hours reduced to a 32 hour workweek with a commensurate cut in compensation.
These layoffs follow an earlier round of layoffs at Food52, when about 20 of Food52's then-roughly 200 employees were laid off on April 6. The axed employees had worked on Food52's content team. A company spokesperson told Digiday the reductions are a move to "better support our commerce business and to better integrate the two companies we acquired last year."
$3.3 billion primary care unicorn Carbon Health laid off 250 employees, or around 8% of the company’s global workforce, according to a statement published by co-founder and CEO Eren Bali on June 2. Carbon has raised more than $500 million in funding, including a $350 million round in July 2021. Bali explained that the layoffs happened in part because some of Carbon's COVID-related business was winding down. “As COVID is entering a new phase, we are winding down some of those COVID-specific lines of business and that, unfortunately, means parting ways with some colleagues,” he wrote.
Crypto darling Gemini, founded by the twin billionaire bitcoin bulls Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, slashed 10% of its workforce on June 2, reports Bloomberg. The exchange was last valued north of $7 billion in late 2021, when it employed roughly 350 people and saw $30 billion in annual transactions.
As "crypto winter" deepens, Rain Financial--one of the Middle East's largest crypto exchanges--laid off "dozens" of workers on June 2, Bloomberg reported. Coinbase, which backs Rain, recently froze hiring itself.
TomTom has announced that it will lay off approximately 500 employees. The cuts impact about 10% of the storied geolocation technology company’s global workforce and are focused within its maps unit. In TomTom’s press release, the company cited higher levels of automation and improvements to its mapmaking technology as reasons for the cuts.
Cannabis startup Eaze quietly laid off up to 25 employees on June 1, Business Insider reported. Layoffs included cuts to Eaze's engineering team and live operations team, which operates its delivery service. Eaze told TechCrunch it was valued at more than $700 million last year.
Greg Schwartz, the CEO and co-founder of digital mortgage startup Tomo announced on LinkedIn on May 31 that Tomo would be reducing its workforce "by almost a third." He continued: "To achieve our long-term goals, we are dialing back our market expansion plans and will focus on building tech enabled mortgage experiences that deliver faster, less costly and less stressful experiences for homebuyers and the real estate agents that serve them in our existing footprint." Schwartz and his co-founder Carey Armstrong, both former Zillow executives, raised a $70 million seed round last summer.
Dubai-based mobility startup SWVL is planning to lay off 32% of its workforce, according to a statement the company released on May 30. According to its LinkedIn page, SWVL has more than 1,330 employees, so letting go of more than 30% of its workforce will mean roughly 400 layoffs. SWVL went public via a SPAC merger with U.S. women-led blank check company Queen’s Gambit Growth Capital in March.
ClickUp laid off 7% of its staff as part of a restructuring “to optimize our business for utmost efficiency,” according to CEO Zeb Evans. Despite the layoffs, ClickUp has no plans to slow down or pause hiring, according to Protocol. The project management platform intends to hire 250 people in 2022 and a further 300 in 2023. ClickUp raised a $400 million funding round in October 2021, valuing the company at $4 billion, and acquired universal search startup Slapdash in April.
$12 billion Turkish delivery unicorn Getir has cut 14% of its staff globally, or about 4,480 employees, TechCrunch reported on May 25. Getir currently operates in Turkey, the U.K., Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Portugal and the U.S., and does not plan to pull out of any country as part of the layoffs. In the memo TechCrunch reported on in which Getir announced the layoffs to its staff, Getir also says it will cut much of its expansion plans related to hiring, marketing and discounts and free vouchers.
In a message to staff posted to the company's blog on May 25, fintech unicorn startup Bolt's CEO Maju Kuruvilla announced that the company would be laying off employees. The news follows Bolt's recent funraising of $355 million at nearly an $11 billion valuation. "To laser focus on our core business and products, we will be prioritizing our roadmap and making several structural changes," Kuruvilla said in the announcement. "Unfortunately, this includes reducing the size of our workforce and parting ways with some incredibly talented people on our team as of today." Bolt also recently made the controversial decision to offer loans to employees who wanted to buy their vested stock options.
PayPal let go of 83 employees from its San Jose headquarters — mainly engineers, managers and directors, the Silicon Valley Business Journal reported. The cuts follow news of PayPal slashing its projections for its full-year profit last month. Last month, too, PayPal announced it would shutter the San Francisco office of subsidiary Xoom.
$3 billion German instant grocery delivery startup Gorillas is laying off about 300 employees, or about half of its staff, and leaving four markets — Italy, Spain, Denmark and Belgium — TechCrunch reported on May 24. The cuts occurred mainly in Gorillas' Berlin headquarters office. Now, the company says, it will focus on Germany, as well as France, the Netherlands, the U.K. and the U.S., as it shifts from "hyper growth" to “a clear path to profitability."
Klarna revealed it will lay off 10% of its 7,000-strong global workforce, meaning the cuts will impact around 700 employees, according to TechCrunch. The move to reduce headcount at the Swedish buy-now-pay-later fintech shortly follows news that Klarna will reduce its valuation to improve chances of raising more funding. In a message to employees, CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski said the world has changed since Klarna initially set its strategies for 2022: “Since then, we have seen a tragic and unnecessary war in Ukraine unfold, a shift in consumer sentiment, a steep increase in inflation, a highly volatile stock market and a likely recession.”
AI photo-editing app startup Picsart cut 90 workers, around 8% of its workforce, The Information reported on May 17. The Miami-based startup fetched a $1.2 billion valuation in a Series C round led by SoftBank last August.
Home fitness startup Zwift cut nearly 150 employees and nixed plans to develop a "smart bike" on May 12, per DC Rainmaker. The company blamed the "current macroeconomic environment" for the layoffs.
The decade-old AI company said it was cutting 7% of its 1,000-person staff on May 11, per The Information. The layoffs follow more than 50 reported resignations over the past month at the NEA- and Tiger Global-backed Boston startup.
Online used car retailer Carvana revealed it had cut approximately 2,500 employees--about 12% of its workforce--in a SEC filing released May 10. The Arizona-based company said the layoffs primarily impacted “operational groups.” Execs are forgoing salaries for the rest of the year to fund the four-week severance packages.
MainStreet CEO Doug Ludlow announced in a May 4 tweet that his startup, which helps other startups uncover tax credits, had laid off about 30% of its staff. “We took this action because we believe that there is a very strong chance that today’s incredibly rough market is only going to get worse, and potentially remain so for months, if not years,” he added.
Amazon aggregator Thrasio is cutting workers and replacing its CEO (and only remaining co-founder), Carlos Cashman, according to a leaked memo reported on by Insider on May 2. The layoffs, which could impact up to 20% of Thrasio’s staff, are expected to impact the company’s brand operations, creative and marketing teams.
Weight-loss app Noom laid off 180 of its weight-loss coaches in late April and told staff at the time that more coach layoffs would follow, Insider reported. In total, the layoffs account for about 25% of Noom’s 2,000-person coaching staff, representing a strategy pivot to scheduled video-based coaching.
Just five months after launching its editorial arm, called Tudum, Netflix laid off at least 10 writers, and 25 people across Netflix's marketing department more broadly on April 28. The layoffs came less than a week after a troubling earnings report that pummeled Netflix’s stock price.
Retail brokerage Robinhood, which reported 3,800 full-time employees at the end of 2021, announced it would be cutting about 9% of its staff, CEO Vlad Tenev announced in a blog post on April 26. Tenev cited “duplicate roles and job functions” for the layoffs, following Robinhood's rapid expansion last year.
Troubled mortgage lending startup Better.com announced more layoffs on April 19, following roughly 900 firings in December and more in March. “As the mortgage environment in which we operate continues to indicate further declines ahead, we have to do more to ensure Better is appropriately positioned, financially and operationally,” Richard Benson-Armer, Better.com’s head of human resources, told staff.
With just weeks of runway left, one-click checkout startup Fast announced in early April that it would shut down. CEO and co-founder Domm Holland tweeted a statement: “After making great strides on our mission of making buying and selling frictionless for everyone, we have made the difficult decision to close our doors.”
*Maya Kosoff and George Paul contributed to this article. *
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