Seattle-based sales technology company Outreach is the latest Seattle "unicorn" — a company with a value of at least $1 billion — to face layoffs.
An Outreach spokesperson on Thursday confirmed to the Business Journal the company had "eliminated a small number of roles." The company raised $200 million in June 2021 and reached a value of more than $4.4 billion.
"Outreach regularly identifies the need to make operational and organizational adjustments to align with our strategic growth plan," a spokesperson said in a statement to the Business Journal. "Less than 5% of existing employees were involved. We are continuing to add targeted new roles across departments this year to help us execute our growth strategy."
Some employees took to LinkedIn to share news of the layoffs. One post indicated most of the content design team was let go.
Manny Medina, co-founder and CEO of Outreach, said on LinkedIn that despite the layoffs, the company is funding new roles on other teams. He added that the affected employees "are good people who have made significant contributions to Outreach and we will help them on their journey to find new employment. This will allow Outreach to not just weather the upcoming economic storm, but to extend our leadership in the market."
Outreach, founded in 2014, makes technology to help sales reps with productivity and decision-making. Its clients include Zoom, Okta and Affirm, according to its website.
In October, when Outreach acquired Indianapolis-based revenue intelligence software company Canopy.io, Medina said Outreach had more than 1,000 employees. The company opened a 7,500-square-foot New York City office in December to house its growing team in the area.
Multiple highly valued companies in Seattle have laid off employees in recent months. In June, Seattle-based freight network company Convoy, which reached a value of $3.8 billion when it raised $260 million in April, laid off about 90 employees. Seattle-based data management company Qumulo, which raised a $125 million Series E round in 2020 and reached a value of over $1.2 billion, laid off about 80 employees, more than 18% of its staff, in June as well.
