Strip District-based Niche, a company that ranks K-12 schools for parents, as well as colleges for aspiring applicants, has confirmed layoffs affecting slightly under 7% of its staff. Of these layoffs, five roles reduced are in the Pittsburgh area.
“As a growing company, we regularly look deeply and thoughtfully at our strategic priorities and what resources are needed to achieve these goals,” a spokesperson for Niche said. “As part of that due diligence, we’ve made the difficult decision to eliminate a number of roles across the organization.”
According to the spokesperson, the company will be offering severance to all affected employees, as well as continuation of benefits and career transition assistance.
Despite the layoffs, the company has not initiated a hiring freeze and is currently taking applications for five positions, all of which are remote, but require the candidate to be in a state where they currently have employees.
“While we will not be backfilling these roles, we are not instituting a hiring freeze and will continue to hire new roles that are critical to hitting our strategic goals,” the spokesperson said. “Moments like these are incredibly challenging, but we believe this reduction in force will better position our company to continue evolving and improving our product for the students, families and school partners that rely on our platform to make important life decisions and meet their enrollment goals. We remain highly confident in the long-term potential of our business and our strategy.”
The company, which was first founded in 2002 under the name College Prowler, had scaled up considerably in recent years. At the start of 2021, it employed 156 people full-time and by the end of that year it was employing 241 people full-time. That expansion continued considerably, and even after the layoffs, the company is still expected to have over 320 full-time employees.
Those hirings came following the company receiving $35 million dollars in Series C funding in April of 2020. The funding round was led by New York-based venture capital firm Radian Capital, with additional investment coming from San Francisco-based firm Salesforce Ventures and other pre-existing investors, including former AOL CEO Tim Armstrong.
Both the higher education industry and the tech industry have seen tumultuous times in the aftermath of the pandemic, however the spokesperson for Niche indicated that the decision was unrelated to industry trends.
Niche is not the first tech company in the Pittsburgh area to announce layoffs in 2024. Earlier this year, self-driving truck company Aurora laid off 3% of its employees. San Francisco based fintech company Affirm is currently in the process of laying off 60 Pittsburgh area-based employees.
