Cybersecurity company Snyk has joined the growing list of Boston-area tech firms laying off employees in preparation for an economic downturn.
The Boston-based company announced yesterday that it had laid off 30 employees across the global organization over the last quarter. Snyk has hub offices in Boston, London, Tel Aviv and Ottawa, per the company’s website. As of last September, the company had 110 employees in Boston.
Snyk did not respond to a request for comment prior to publication on the layoffs or note whether employees in Boston were impacted.
CEO Peter McKay wrote in an internal memo, which the company shared publicly yesterday, that this decision was made as the world faces “looming economic headwinds.”
“To ensure we’re in the best possible position to thrive under these new circumstances, we collectively must embrace an evolved mindset that balances profitability with continued top line growth,” McKay wrote.
A number of Boston tech companies have announced layoffs in the last few months as experts warn of a potential economic downturn. The list includes Notarize Inc., which laid off 110 employees (25% of its payroll); Aura Inc., which cut about 70 employees worldwide this year; and Give Legacy Inc., which let go 13 workers this month.
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Over the past 18 months, Snyk said it made six acquisitions, including data analytics startup TopCoat and Fugue, a cloud security and compliance company. The 7-year-old company said its team size tripled during this time.
“In order to stay ahead of the incredible market demand for developer security, we’ve gone through an extended period of hypergrowth,” McKay wrote.
Snyk came into 2022 armed with new capital after raising a $530 million Series F round in September 2021 and adding $75 million to the raise later that month. Snyk’s valuation was approaching $10 billion after first becoming a unicorn in 2020.
McKay noted several internal changes to Snyk’s teams in the memo. He said the R&D organization has restructured its product division into two teams focused on application products and cloud products. The team known as engines is now the security division. McKay said that the go-to-market team has been “reoriented” to focus on “retaining current customers, acquiring new customers and expanding our existing business.”
“To this end, we’ve moved to a new customer experience model that brings our solution engineering and customer success groups into our unified GTM organization which will help us become an even more powerful team,” McKay wrote. “We’ve also deliberately separated the teams that drive two critical, equally important motions: acquiring new customers and driving expansion within our current customer base.”
Snyk is also planning for how it aims to emerge from the expected economic struggles ahead.
“We’ve accelerated our plans by a full year to become free cash flow positive in 2024. This will place us in a stronger position to take advantage of current market challenges, exiting this volatile period stronger than ever,” McKay said.
