True Anomaly jackal

Exclusive: Defense startup True Anomaly lays off around 25%, cancels summer internship

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True Anomaly jackal

Image Credits: True Anomaly (opens in a new window)

Space and defense startup True Anomaly has laid off around 25% of its workforce and canceled its summer internship program, TechCrunch has learned.

“With our rapid growth over the past two years, we looked at every aspect of our company to make sure we are laser focused on our goals and best positioned to execute,” a company spokesperson said. “We identified the duplication of roles and functions across the company, and as such, reduced our headcount. This won’t impact our ability to execute on our contracts with customers or on our mission to bring security and sustainability to the space domain.”

While TechCrunch could not confirm the total headcount prior to these layoffs, True Anomaly had over 100 employees as of December 2023, it told the Denver Business Journal. Nearly 30 people were cut from the workforce, according to a post on LinkedIn from one of the people let go.

Employees started posting on LinkedIn about the layoffs on April 24; according to those messages, people impacted worked in sales, business development and recruiting. At least some interns were abruptly told the summer internship program was canceled last Friday, on April 19, as well. The internship was set to start on June 1.

The Centennial, Colorado-based startup closed a $100 million financing round last December; at the time, executives said staff had swelled to 107 employees. Earlier this month, True Anomaly CEO Even Rogers told TechCrunch during an interview on the company’s first mission that the company was “well-capitalized.”

True Anomaly hopes to modernize space defense with its Jackal spacecraft and Mosaic software platform for command and control operations. The startup envisions using Jackals on orbit to approach, image and gather intelligence on other objects in orbit.

True Anomaly launched that first mission, called Mission X, on March 4, though it ended early after the company failed to establish reliable communications with the two spacecraft that were deployed in orbit. The anomaly is hardly slowing them down, however. The startup is pushing to launch at least twice more in the next 12 months, aiming for another launch in October, one person told TechCrunch.

The person was offered an internship, and spoke to TechCrunch on condition of anonymity, saying that a technical recruiter suggested that the internship program had been canceled because the company didn’t have the human bandwidth to organize and supervise an intern project. The team is also starting work on the $30 million responsive space contract that the company was awarded earlier this month, the person said.

Sprinklr logo on its website

Exclusive: Sprinklr lays off more than 100 employees

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Sprinklr logo on its website

Image Credits: Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch

Sprinklr, a U.S. firm offering a customer experience management platform to global brands, has laid off about 3% of its workforce — around 116 people — to realign its customer operations team, the company confirmed to TechCrunch in a statement. The new job cuts come over a year after the company cut about 4% of its headcount in February last year.

The New York-headquartered company, which counts Microsoft, Samsung, P&G and over 60% of the Fortune 100 companies globally as customers, started notifying affected employees in markets including the U.S. and India about its decision on Thursday, TechCrunch exclusively learned and confirmed with the company through an email.

“Sprinklr made the strategic business decision to realign our headcount across our customer operations organization,” a company spokesperson said. “While these decisions are hard to make, they reflect the commitments we’ve outlined to restructure our business to accelerate our go-to-market efficiencies and better serve customers.”

The spokesperson confirmed that the job cuts did not affect C-level roles.

Sprinklr did not disclose the exact number of employees being laid off. According to its recent 10-K filing (PDF), the company had 3,869 employees worldwide as of January 31. Of the total workforce, Sprinklr had 787 in the U.S. and 3,082 internationally (with 2,276 employees in India).

“The restructuring will be done in accordance with local and country laws. This difficult, but necessary, action ensures we are aligned to our prioritized growth areas while supporting customers where they live and operate,” the spokesperson stated.

In March, Sprinklr reported a 17% year-on-year increase in its quarterly revenue for Q4 to $194.2 million from $165.3 million a year ago. The company also garnered GAAP operating income of $18.5 million compared to an operating loss of $1.8 million a year ago.

“While we will continue to hire in prioritized areas to support our growth, scale, and long-term success, our first priority is to support employees with the greatest care and respect, show appreciation for their contributions to Sprinklr, and to assist them in their transition. We will then continue our focus on strengthening our foundation, fostering innovation and enhancing our execution to drive value for our customers and shareholders,” the spokesperson said.

On Friday, Sprinklr was trading at $12.10 per share with a market cap of $3.30 billion.

Food supply chain software maker Silo lays off ~30% of staff amid M&A discussions

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Silo screens

Image Credits: Silo

Silo, a Bay Area food supply chain startup, has hit a rough patch. TechCrunch has learned that the company on Tuesday laid off roughly 30% of its staff, or north of two dozen employees. Silo has confirmed the headcount reductions, clarifying the cuts were across the board and not focused on individual departments.

Silo shared the following statement with TechCrunch regarding the layoffs:

We recently made the difficult decision to reduce our headcount by almost 30%. We are committed to supporting those team members impacted and have provided severance packages and recruiting support. At the same time, Silo remains dedicated to serving our customers and the perishables industry at large, and will continue to focus more nimbly on building next-generation supply chain management software solutions.

Founded in 2018, Silo’s platform helps automate the workflows of food and agricultural businesses and later expanded into other areas, like payment products for accounts payable and receivable automation, inventory management, ledger accounting, financing and more.

Leading up to the layoffs was an issue around a lending product that had hurt Silo’s revenue. A company source confirmed that a customer had become delinquent on their loan, which caused Silo’s banking partner to pause the loan product. Silo then worked with the bank to resolve the problem with the customer, so the facility has the ability to fund again.

While Silo is now able to lend, the lack of payment from that customer and overall pause in lending meant a drop in revenue for that period, leading to the layoffs. For that reason, Silo will likely be careful about ramping up the lending product as it moves forward.

This all took place in recent weeks. However, it’s possible that if Silo had implemented stronger risk management processes, it wouldn’t have faced the default.

In addition, we’re hearing Silo is engaged in M&A discussions as another possible resolution to its current situation. The company had previously engaged in discussions with potential deal partners ahead of its Series C last year, but the fundraise allowed Silo to pause those talks for a time. In recent weeks, those M&A discussions have picked back up again on the back of new growth the company saw last year as well as the possible need for an exit.

The startup raised $32 million in Series C funding last summer. Investors include Initialized, Haystack, Tribe Capital, KDT, a16z and others.