Digital freight startup Convoy announced Monday that it is cutting more jobs, the tech giant’s second round of layoffs in the past year after slashing 7% of its workforce in June.
However, the Seattle-based company declined to disclose the number of employees being terminated “out of respect for our employees — some conversations are still happening,” a Convoy spokesperson told FreightWaves on Monday.
The spokesperson confirmed the terminated employees were offered severance packages but did not provide any additional details about the layoffs.
Convoy, which is valued at $3.8 billion, raised $260 million in new funding in mid-April with $160 million coming from a series E preferred equity round led by current investors Baillie Gifford and T. Rowe Price and $100 million in venture-debt investment coming from Hercules Capital Inc.
FreightWaves has been reporting about a slew of FreightTech companies that have laid off hundreds of employees or implemented hiring freezes amid economic uncertainty this year.
Besides the layoffs, Convoy is rolling out plans to reorganize and realign its resources toward “a smaller, more focused number of customer-centric strategic initiatives to drive growth,” the company said in a letter to employees, which was obtained by FreightWaves.
“Our customers, like most businesses today, continue to face a series of seemingly unprecedented external pressures — the pandemic, supply chain shortages, US/China trade war, energy crisis [and] inflation,” said Dan Lewis, CEO and co-founder of Convoy. “In an environment like this, companies that embrace change as the new normal and build resilience will be the winners in the years to come.”
Convoy also announced it is streamlining all of its shipper-facing business functions — including its shipper, marketplace growth, marketing and communications — into one organization, which will be spearheaded by Ryan Gavin, chief growth officer. The new group will be called the Shipper Growth organization.
According to the Convoy letter, Dorothy Li, chief technology officer of Convoy, will be creating unified organizations to align directly with Gavin’s new group.
Melissa McCann-Tilton, the company’s chief revenue officer, will serve as an adviser to Convoy’s president and CEO before transitioning out of the FreightTech company at the end of the year.
Spencer Hennigar will lead Convoy’s shipper sales and account management, reporting to Gavin.
“The organizational changes and new priorities we are rolling out today will focus our priorities and the energy of our company and culture onto the things that our customers most value from Convoy,” Lewis said. “In doing so, we will help our customers be more agile and resilient and secure Convoy a position as a valued and strategic partner.”
This is a developing story.
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