Phunware, an Austin-based mobile app and enterprise software company, is planning to lay off 18% of its workforce, according to documents filed Friday morning.
The company says that its contract with Fox Networks Group came to an end on Sept. 30, though it still has services agreement with Fox. The contract had represented 42% of Phunware's net revenues. Without that contract, the company said it decided to lay off 21 people, or 18% of its staff.
The layoffs will result in about $2 million in pre-tax savings. Meanwhile, Phunware is providing severance packages, which, along with other payroll taxes, will cost the company about $94,000, an SEC filing shows.
Meanwhile on Friday, Phunware announced several new contracts with major customers. That includes a contract with American Made Media Consultants, which was created by President Donald Trump's campaign and Brad Parscale to coordinate ad buying.
Other new and existing contracts include Atlantis Paradise Island Bahamas, Baptist Health South Florida, Buffalo Heights, Cedar-Sinai, Datum Tech, Freefire Media, Macerich, Parkview Health and PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Phunware said.
“We are happy to see a wide distribution of contract wins across many of our core verticals as we continue to grow and diversify our customer base and drive towards cash neutrality by year end," Phunware CFO Matt Aune said in a statement.
The layoffs also come about a week after Phunware announced it would be selling its Phun utility tokens through an initial exchange offering on the Liquid platform. The tokens are intended to give consumers more power to be compensated by brands for sharing data.
News of the layoffs and customer wins add to a complicated series of developments for Phunware, which was founded in 2009 and became one of Austin's fastest growing startups, raising more than $100 million before going public in 2018 after a reverse merger with Stellar Acquisition III Inc.
Since its IPO, Phunware's stock has taken a wild ride, climbing to a 52-week of around $550 in January and a 52-week low of $1.11 per share. The company's stock was listed at $1.46 Friday morning.
In a prior round of layoffs at Phunware in April, the company cut its staff by 15% -- or 23 people. Those layoffs were due to “organizational restructuring and cost reductions to align its subscriptions and application transactions business,” the company said at the time.
Meanwhile, Phunware is in a two-year-long legal dispute with ride-hailing giant Uber over advertising payments.
At the same time, the company has sought to remake itself as data and privacy rules evolve in the U.S. and abroad. In recent months, the company has expanded its advisory board, which now includes Brittany Kaiser, a Cambridge Analytica business development director featured in the Netflix documentary “The Great Hack,” who is now co-founder of the Digital Asset Trade Association; and Sean Koh, who has worked with Beyonce, Britney Spears, Taylor Swift and others on data management.
Editor's note: An earlier version of this story misstated the total VC funding Phunware raised before going public. It has been updated.
