This is a developing story.
The global outbreak of COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus, has wreaked havoc across global health systems as well as economies.
In March 2020 alone, the U.S. economy lost 701,000 jobs, taking the unemployment rate to 4.4 percent. That month, a record 6.6 million Americans filed for unemployment. Meanwhile, closer to home, the number of unemployment claims in Massachusetts grew to 181,062 for the week ending March 28, up from 147,995 claims the previous week.
Below is an ongoing list of Boston startups and tech firms that have made cuts as the coronavirus takes its toll.
Alchemista
Boston-based corporate catering startup Alchemista furloughed 90 percent of its staff, bringing its headcount to four including co-founder and CEO Christine Marcus. The startup was poised for an expansion to New York City with 18 full-time people on the team, along with a small army of part-time hospitality professionals who would interface with new restaurants. CEO Christine Marcus said Alchemista’s only client “at work” right now is Moderna Therapeutics, the Cambridge-based biotech working on a COVID-19 vaccine.
Aqua Security
Aqua Security Software, an Israeli cybersecurity company whose U.S. headquarters are in Burlington, laid off more than two dozen employees via remote meeting software or by phone.
Andy Feit, the company's vice president of go-to-market, told our sister publication the Boston Business Journal that cuts affected less than 10 percent of a total workforce of just over 260 people. That amounted to less than 10 people in the Burlington office, bringing its Massachusetts headcount down to 50 employees.
Bevi
Boston-based Bevi, which makes smart water dispensers for offices, laid off more than 30 employees, primarily on the revenue side of the business. The company’s current headcount stands at 120. CEO Sean Grundy told BostInno that the company is now focusing on R&D and operational improvements to help the company bounce back than its users return to work.
Bose
Framingham-based Bose Corp. furloughed an undisclosed number of employees on April 21, citing declining business amid coronavirus disruption. The four-week unpaid furloughs could turn into layoffs if the company is unable to reopen at the end of the furlough period.
Bullhorn
Bullhorn, the Boston-based cloud computing company that operates staffing and recruiting software, is the latest local company to cut jobs as the effects of coronavirus take their toll on the labor market.
Founded in 1999, Bullhorn laid off nearly 100 employees and furloughed another smaller group of employees.
"As most of you know, Bullhorn serves the staffing and recruitment industry, which has been deeply impacted by the COVID-19 crisis," said Bullhorn CEO Art Papas in a note published on LinkedIn. "Many of our customers have seen steep declines in revenue and we've been inundated with hundreds and hundreds of requests from customers for financial assistance in the last 30 days."
Catalant Technologies
Catalant Technologies, the Boston-based startup that runs an AI-driven skills matching and resource allocation platform, confirmed layoffs in an email to BostInno but declined to answer questions how many employees had been let go or in what departments. A spokesperson said that customer delivery teams were not impacted and that Catalant was hiring for certain roles on the engineering team.
CarGurus
Cambridge-based automotive marketplace company CarGurus laid off 13 percent of its workforce as the novel coronavirus continues to roil the economy. The company declined to give an individual headcount as to how many employees were let go and in what departments, instead writing in an email to BostInno that “most departments were impacted by this.”
Before making the decision to reduce its workforce, CarGurus also reduced its consumer marketing and discretionary spending and enacted a hiring freeze. The executive team and board of directors are cutting their pay in half for the next three months. Notably, CarGurus is also winding down operations in its emerging markets of Italy, Spain and Germany and is halting new international expansion efforts.
ClimaCell
Boston-based ClimaCell, a microweather technology company that provides high-definition weather maps in real time, furloughed 10 employees.
"Via video call from my bedroom, I said goodbye to fellow ClimaCellers - who gave us everything they had. Truly amazing people who I will keep in my life and who we would never let go otherwise," CEO Shimon Elkabetz wrote in a post on LinkedIn. "We did everything we can to keep our community intact - but we failed. This is a surreal reality, ClimaCell did exceptionally well so far - but the world turned on its head. We didn’t plan for a pandemic, and we were built for growth. As for ClimaCell - we are here to stay. We are 100% operational, and the technology and products will only get better. When the sun shines tomorrow - so will we."
Cogito
Boston-based emotional intelligence startup Cogito confirmed in an email to BostInno that it had laid off employees but declined to comment on the number of employees affected. A source told BostInno that 24 full-time employees and six contractors had been let go.
Cogito's vice president of marketing, Steve Kruas, did not answer questions about what departments were impacted but said Cogito had made changes “across our internal organizations and at the executive level.” Kraus said that the company had also adjusted compensation and consolidated certain functions within the leadership team.
DataRobot
DataRobot, the Boston-based enterprise AI company, confirmed it had layoffs but declined to answer questions about how many employees were laid off and in what departments, saying instead that the layoffs had affected employees across business areas and regions.
Posts by laid-off employees on LinkedIn show that the cuts affected teams in the U.S., the U.K., Australia and Brazil, and employees on the software engineering, marketing, customer success, sales and data science teams were let go. The Boston office was home to 250 full-time employees as of October.
Desktop Metal
Burlington-based Desktop Metal, the 3D printing startup led by A123 Systems founder Ric Fulop, laid off workers in the engineering, industrial design and lab and metallurgy departments, according to a source who wished to remain anonymous. The company confirmed the layoffs but declined to comment on what departments were affected or how many employees were let go.
Dispatch
Boston-based Dispatch CEO Patrick Burns declined to comment on what departments were affected or how many employees were let go. But a source, who wished to remain anonymous, told BostInno the company laid off close to 38 percent of its staff.
ezCater
Boston-based corporate catering startup ezCater laid off more than 400 employees across all four of its offices as the spread of the novel coronavirus disrupts workplaces around the world.
“There is not enough sugar on the planet to sugarcoat this: we’re a company that feeds meetings, and meetings are not happening much right now,” the company said in a statement emailed to BostInno. “We were crushing our 2020 plan, until coronavirus hit.”
Flywire
As the effects of the coronavirus grip the startup economy, Boston's fintech darling Flywire is the latest company to announce cuts.
The payment processing company laid off 12 percent of its staff — 60 employees, by some estimates — and moved another 3 percent of "non critical" staff to part-time positions through the end of the year.
Hopper
Travel booking app Hopper announced layoffs on April 6 but declined to answer questions about how many employees were laid off and in what departments, saying instead that the layoffs had affected employees across business areas and regions.
“It is with heavy hearts that we have had to make the very difficult decision to reduce our workforce,” Hopper’s director of communications, Brianna Schneider said in an email to BostInno. “We are deeply saddened to part ways with the exceptionally talented individuals who have contributed to Hopper’s mission, and yet we know that it is necessary for us to take these measures to ensure that we will be there for our customers and partners long into the future.”
iRobot
Bedford-based iRobot cut 70 jobs and shelved plans to introduce a robotic lawn mower, as the pandemic has prompted a big drop in revenues and profits.
The job cuts amount to 5 percent of the workforce and mostly involve research and development, the Boston Globe reported. The company also furloughed an additional 14 workers involved with European retail activities and said it would cut the number of people it plans to hire this year.
Lola.com
Boston tech darling Lola.com laid off 34 employees, nearly one-third of its workforce.
Among those laid off were software engineers, account executives and directors of people operations, sales and marketing. One source told BostInno that the entire sales and marketing teams had been let go. That includes chief marketing officer Jeanne Hopkins, who joined the company in October 2018. CEO Mike Volpe said in an email to BostInno that Lola now has a headcount of 82 full-time employees.
MassBio
The biopharma industry group laid off six employees in September, cuts the CEO attributed to the pandemic and its effects on MassBio’s events business.
NuoDB
NuoDB, the Cambridge-based database provider founded in 2008, laid off employees as the novel coronavirus takes its toll on the startup landscape.
A source told BostInno that 20 people had been let go, leaving the startup with 50 full-time employees. NuoDB declined to answer questions about how many employees were laid off but said all departments had been impacted.
The Predictive Index
The Predictive Index, a Westwood-based provider of talent optimization software, laid off 59 employees, more than 25 percent of its workforce.
A spokesperson said in an email to BostInno that the companies made the choice only after “aggressively eliminating or postponing” discretionary expenses. In concert with the layoffs, CEO Mike Zani and chairman and president Daniel Muzquiz froze their salaries.
To support the workers who were laid off, the company shared with BostInno a spreadsheet that dozens of employees have opted to add their information to in a bid to find new employment. The spreadsheet shows that employees were let go across departments, particularly sales, customer success and people operations.
Privitar
Privitar, a seven-year-old British data privacy software company whose U.S. headquarters are in Boston, cut its workforce in late January 2021 due to the ongoing effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. In an email, CEO and co-founder Jason du Preez confirmed the layoffs but declined to answer questions about how many employees were affected and in what departments, whether Privitar had offered severance packages and whether du Preez or his fellow executives had taken pay cuts.
A person familiar with the layoffs, who wished to remain anonymous, said Privitar laid off the majority of its U.S. staff: At least 20 employees were let go, including at least three in the Boston office, the person said. Privitar did not dispute these numbers.
Salsify
Salsify, the product experience management platform based in Boston’s Financial District, laid off 60 employees, about 13 percent of its staff. In a statement emailed to BostInno, a spokesperson said headcount had been reduced to Q4 2019 levels to accommodate “much slower 2020 growth than initially planned.” Salsify’s headcount now stands at 400. The sales and marketing departments were most severely impacted, as those departments are designed to support rapid growth that is no longer anticipated.
Spyce
MIT spinoff Spyce, which runs a robotic kitchen in Downtown Boston, laid off four members on its engineering and operations teams, Spyce spokesperson Grace Uvezian said in an email. Spyce now has a headcount of 30.
Toast
Boston-based restaurant management platform provider Toast laid off or furloughed roughly 50 percent of its staff as the novel coronavirus effectively shuts down much of the restaurant industry. By Toast’s own analysis, average daily sales at restaurants declined by nearly 80 percent toward the end of March.
“This is a massive disruption that hit the industry virtually overnight,” Toast CEO Chris Comparato wrote in a letter announcing the layoffs. “Many restaurants that have temporarily closed may never reopen. Our mission is to empower the restaurant community to delight guests, do what they love, and thrive. As a restaurant management platform, our success is tightly coupled with the success of the restaurant industry.”
The Tor Project
Cambridge-based The Tor Project, a research education nonprofit that develops and maintains the privacy-focused Tor browser, cut a third of its staff amid the coronavirus crisis.
Executive director Isabela Bagueros said the group was letting go of 13 staff members and would “move forward” with a core team of just 22 people.
Tripadvisor
Needham-based Tripadvisor laid off hundreds of employees for the second time this year, as the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic continue to impact the travel metasearch company.
Tripadvisor said it was cutting more than 900 employees, or approximately one-quarter of its total workforce. The company also put “most” of its salaried employees on a four-day week schedule with a corresponding 20 percent reduction in base salary for three months, starting in June, according to a message from CEO Steve Kaufer.
The company is permanently shutting down its downtown Boston office near North Station, as well as its San Francisco office.
Less than a week later, Tripadvisor revealed it was furloughing approximately 850 additional employees, or 22 percent of its workforce, most significantly at its restaurant reservation subsidiary The Fork. "As an industry, we are currently experiencing the darkest of days," Kaufer and CFO Ernst Teunissen wrote in the letter to shareholders.
Validity
Boston-based customer data quality startup Validity laid off about 130 employees worldwide, including 35 at its corporate headquarters in Back Bay.
The cuts amount to just under a third of Validity’s global workforce, leaving the company with just under 400 full-time workers, chief marketing officer Charlie Ungashick confirmed in an email to BostInno. Validity’s principal office is in Tampa, Fla.; its international headquarters are in London.
Wanderu
Wanderu, which aggregates intercity bus and train information, put around 40 employees on unpaid leave. “We needed to make some very difficult decisions that would allow us to minimize our current costs as much as possible and give our company the ability to get through these uncertain times,” Wanderu CEO Polina Raygorodskaya said in a statement.
Workable
Workable, the Boston-based startup that develops talent acquisition software, has laid off 25 employees—9 percent of its workforce—as a result of the coronavirus, a company spokesperson confirmed.
The layoffs spanned multiple departments and offices. Workable has offices in Boston and Athens, Greece.
Zerto
Zerto, the IT resiliency platform provider with headquarters both in Boston and Israel, reportedly laid off an estimated 200 of employees, mostly those who worked in the development department in Israel. Others were from the customer service departments in Israel and the U.S.
Zipcar
Zipcar, the Boston-based car-sharing company, laid off nearly 20 percent of its workforce. In a statement emailed to BostInno, Justin Holmes, Zipcar’s director of corporate communications, public policy and partnerships, said “the COVID-19 situation” had directly impacted Zipcar’s decision to make layoffs.
Less than two weeks later, the company furloughed additional workers in the U.S. and Canada, though it declined to specify exactly how many employees were affected.
