Seattle-based F5 Inc. (Nasdaq: FFIV) has laid off 120 employees, less than 2% of its total headcount.
An F5 spokesperson said the company made the decision last week. The company, which employs about 6,400 people, laid off 623 workers, or about 9% of its staff, in April.
"These changes align investments and resources to initiatives that accelerate our strategy to make hybrid and multi-cloud application security and delivery easier for our customers," the spokesperson said in a statement.
F5 was founded in 1996 and went public in 1999. The company offers app protection, fraud prevention, network performance and app delivery. F5 rebranded in 2021, dropping "Networks" from its name. The company started as a tool to help clients smoothly run their websites, but it has steadily moved further into the app and cloud spaces. Its clients include Puma and Shawbrook Bank.
At the time of the April layoffs, F5 said it was also reducing its office footprint to cut costs. CEO François Locoh-Donou didn't receive a cash bonus for the fiscal year, and the executive leadership team had its cash bonuses cut by 70%. F5 also cut employee bonus funding by 50%. The company made large company events virtual, and it made further travel and expense cuts.
In October of last year, F5 laid off about 100 employees. The company had roughly 6,900 employees at that time.
F5, which reported fiscal fourth quarter and 2023 full-year results in late October, generated $2.8 billion in revenue in fiscal 2023, up from $2.7 billion in fiscal 2022. The company generated $707 million in revenue during the fiscal fourth quarter, up from $700 million during the same period last year.
“We enter fiscal year 2024 in an environment that seems to be stabilizing,” Locoh-Donou said in a release announcing the results. “We expect some customer caution will persist into fiscal year 2024 and that, combined with the $180 million headwind from strong backlog fulfillment in fiscal year 2023, tempers our 2024 revenue growth expectations."
