Capitolis CEO Gil Mandelzis. company photo by Eyal Tuag
Four more Israel startup nation firms were forced to lay off workers this past week: Capitolis, Similarweb, OwnBackup, and Yotpo. The numbers of layoffs among Israeli high tech firms keep on rising and even unicorns and big publically traded companies are not immune from the global financial crisis that was sparked by the Russian invasion of Ukraine in March.
Well, here are the numbers:
OwnBackup, an Israeli startup that offers a cloud data backup and recovery platform, is firing 170 employees in Israel and the U.S. This constitutes about 17% of the company’s total workforce. Ownbackup is a unicorn that was recently valued at as much as $3.35 billion, after in August of 2021 the company raised $240 million in a Series E round of investment.
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Israeli e-commerce firm Yotpo is letting go of 70 people, or 9% of its workforce.
“Today was one of the most difficult and saddest days we’ve experienced since the company was founded, a day in which we were forced to reduce the company’s workforce by 9% and part ways with 70 employees, 30 of them from Israel, who were amazing partners in our journey,” Yotpo said in a statement. “Following the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, we experienced and took part in the growth of the global economy and the record demand for the e-commerce solutions that we offer. During this period we increased, like most leading e-commerce companies, our number of employees to match the new reality. However, due to the global slowdown and the situation in the markets, we understand that we need to act in order to reduce and adjust ourselves to the current market conditions, without harming our growth and innovation potential. Therefore, we sadly have to part ways with excellent and dedicated employees. We are committed to helping them in the process of embarking on a new journey.”
Capitolis, an Israeli fintech startup and a unicorn, is firing 37 people, or about 25% of its employees. Capitolis hit unicorn status in March with a $1.6 billion valuation when the company raised $110 million in a Series D round of investment.
In a statement, Capitolis described the move as a “difficult decision to reduce the size of its workforce,” saying the company mostly eliminated roles that it had hired in anticipation of significant growth that Capitolis says is no longer “realistic in this challenging market environment.”
“All of these employees are valued and have served our company well,” said Capitolis. “This decision in no way impacts our ability to service the world’s leading and most dynamic financial institutions we are proud to call our clients. Our revenues remain at 10x what they were only three years ago, and we have a strong growth pipeline ahead of us and look forward to continuing to promote the safety and stability of our financial system.”
Then there is Similarweb Ltd., an Israeli provider of digital intelligence solutions that completed its IPO on the New York Stock Exchange this past May, coming away with a $1.6 billion valuation at the time. But that was before the problems all started for the financial world. The company must now let go of 130 people, or 10% of its workforce.
Founded in 2007 by CEO Or Offer and Nir Cohen, Similarweb declares its mission to be to deliver the “most trusted, comprehensive, and detailed view of the digital world, so our customers can outperform their competition and win their markets.”
But now Offer had to explain to his people why Similarweb needed to make cutbacks.
“Over the course of 2022, while our business has continued to grow, we have also seen substantial economic shifts around the globe,” said Offer. “As a result of these shifts, we have made the very difficult decision to reduce our headcount in preparation for prolonged changes in demand. This is part of an ongoing plan to accelerate our path to cash flow profitability during 2023. We are balancing our resources to align with this strategy, and to enhance our flexibility.”
