Chicago tech company Jellyvision, which operates an employee communication platform, has laid off 65 people, the company's first workforce reduction in its 18-year history.
The company confirmed to Chicago Inno Thursday that it cut its headcount from 421 employees to 356, a 15 percent reduction in staff. The news, which was first reported by Crain’s, comes shortly after the company was advertising a hiring spree. Jellyvision notified employees of the layoffs on Wednesday.
"Ultimately, the painful reality is this is about reducing bureaucracy and increasing speed," said Jellyvision's CEO Amanda Lannert. "Yesterday, some really talented people in all departments lost their jobs."
Early last year, Jellyvision said that it was aiming to reach more than 470 employees by the end of 2019. At the time, the company said it was hiring across all of its departments, including marketing and engineering. In August, Jellyvision said it had reached more than 450 employees when it was named one of Chicago Inno’s 2019 Coolest Companies.
To accommodate the growth, Jellyvision opened a new office building in 2018 at 1333 N. Kingsbury St., giving the company a three-building campus in Lincoln Park.
Originally founded as a video game company, Jellyvision has grown into a software provider. Its product, ALEX, helps workers understand complex concepts like signing up for healthcare coverage. The company often takes a humor-driven approach to its mission as it aims to make confusing topics easier to understand.
Lannert said ALEX saw double digit growth in 2019 and that the company met its profitability targets, but that it still didn't grow quite as much as it had planned.
To address growth challenges, Lannert said Jellyvision has big plans to innovate its software product, expanding beyond healthcare benefits and into overarching financial planning features. Within the next three years, Lannert says Jellyvision will be more of a financial advisory platform, offering 401K and financial planning assistance.
Even amid the layoffs, Lannert said Jellyvision isn't on a hiring freeze. The company still has open positions listed on its website, but is going to be "incredibly thoughtful about who we hire, when we hire."
"I am ashamed of this. I am not proud of this. I am sorry for this," Lannert said. "But the reason I'm talking to the press is that you need to know that good people deserve jobs."
Jellyvision isn’t the only high-profile Chicago tech company to lay off employees recently. In December, G2 Crowd, the software review platform, cut 10 percent of its staff, and predictive analytics startup Uptake laid off 23 employees.
