A highly valued tech startup with a Birmingham presence laid off 100 employees March 20, with eight of those affected based in the Magic City.
The startup, Fetch Rewards, a shopping rewards app and consumer data company, called the move at attempt to "preserve the business's overall health."
The Birmingham team has 90 employees remaining.
All impacted employees will receive severance, career coaching and continued health care through COBRA, according to Fetch director of corporate communications Allison Geyer, who added that Fetch was impacted by the Silicon Valley Bank situation, which contributed to the decision to initiate the layoffs.
The job cuts represented around 12% of its staff. After the layoffs, the Madison-based company has 748 employees, Geyer said in an email Wednesday.
"Like many in the tech space, the overarching macroeconomic conditions have caused us to reevaluate the team structure," Geyer said.
Although the recent wave of tech layoffs hasn't impacted Wisconsin companies as dramatically as companies on the coasts, firms with local tech presences such as Exact Sciences Corp., Zywave, Fiserv Inc., Bright Cellars and Northwestern Mutual have confirmed layoffs of varying scales in recent months, often citing macroeconomic factors.
Sixteen of the Fetch employees who were laid off were based in Wisconsin, Geyer said. Fetch also has offices in Chicago, New York and Boston as well as Birmingham.
Though Fetch was among the companies impacted by the recent SVB meltdown, the decision to restructure the company was in the works prior to the SVB situation, Geyer said.
News of the Fetch layoffs was first reported by The Information, which also reported that Fetch had set the goal of reaching profitability in 2023 and either being acquired or going public rather than having to do another fundraising round, according to a person briefed on the plans.
Fetch has no current plans for an exit, Geyer said, but it continues to "work toward optimizing our business such that we're in the best position when the time comes," she said. It's in a position to continue scaling in 2023 to serve its growing user base, she added.
The company last raised capital in April 2022, when it announced a $240 million round that valued Fetch at $2.5 billion. It has raised more than $500 million since its founding in 2013.
Fetch reported 407% revenue growth between 2019 and 2021, placing it on a recent Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing private Midwest companies.
