Barely a month after it hit unicorn status, Beamery said it’s laying off “around 12%” of its workforce.
According to Tech.EU, UK-based Beamery informed its staff about the cut backs during an all-hands call on Tuesday. The call was followed by a company-wide email that said it intended to let go of more than 10% of its staff.
Responding to a request for comment, Beamery told Tech.EU “[We] have made some difficult decisions and our primary focus is supporting employees that may be impacted by this process and helping talented people that have helped to build this company.”
In the email, the company got more specific about reasons for the layoffs, referring to inflation, the energy crises, high interest rates and “sparser startup funding” as the main drivers of its decision. Earlier, the company made cost-cutting moves, but they apparently weren’t enough. Beamery believeds the layoffs were necessary for to attain “a sustainable future,” said Tech.EU.
Beamery employs more than 400 people, according to its LinkedIn profile. Details on severance packages – if there are severance packages – weren’t available.
Unicorns Have Layoffs, Too
In December, Beamery closed a $50 million Series D funding round, which lifted the company to a valuation of more than $1 billion. It also represented a 25% valuation uplift over its previous investment round. “With this new funding, we will continue to develop groundbreaking ways for companies to better understand their workforce today and be able to plan for tomorrow,” CEO Abakar Saidov said at the time.
Around the same time, Beamery also launched a Universal Skills Platform to help employers understand the current and potential skills of their workforce, along with enhancements meant to help talent teams reduce bias and identify the best internal or external candidate for any particular role.
Technology and HR layoffs have risen markedly over the last several months. Hibob, Payfactors, Namely and Remote have all let workers go, according to the website layoffs.fyi.
Image: Beamery
