Colossus Strength, a startup that sells enterprise application to photo voltaic corporations, laid off nearly 100 staff on May perhaps 6, Axios has uncovered.
Why it matters: Uncertainty abounds in the solar field.
What is actually taking place: Colossus slice 97 roles throughout product sales, support, quality assurance and HR, in accordance to a crowdsourced doc helping impacted workforce look for for new prospects that Axios obtained.
- The bulk of cuts ended up across the company’s call heart reps, the business confirmed to Axios.
- Rachel Andrus, the director of tutorial design, was also among people let go.
- “The sizeable decision to shut our phone middle functions was necessary to aggressively pursue expansion possibilities in established parts of our small business,” Daniel Gloede, Colossus’s head of finance, tells Axios via electronic mail.
- “Earlier this thirty day period, we released a electronic photo voltaic marketplace to improved provide our customers. This aligns with our aim on expanding our income enablement solutions.”
Concerning the traces: Income team layoffs usually arrive as a company struggles to bring in and retain buyer contracts.
- Around a week just after the layoffs happened, Gloede shared a CNBC story about charge-reducing at Uber on LinkedIn, including, “Dara’s letter to his team is one I suspect will be repeated many instances around in the public markets around the coming months. Target on unit economics, make using the services of extra selective, start exhibiting path to profitability. Startup CFOs want to have identical conversations with their founders.”
Context: Colossus lifted $36 million in Series A funding on January 18. BuildGroup led the round, which also integrated Money Creek, RTP World, CEAS and Poplar Ventures.
- The company has lifted $41 million in funding to day.
Condition of engage in: The solar industry is dealing with numerous crises that threaten its extensive-time period wellness.
- The U.S. Department of Commerce is at present pursuing an investigation into irrespective of whether some solar panel suppliers violated trade barriers, cutting off a vast majority of the U.S. imported panel provide till the investigation is comprehensive.
- Banks have stepped back again from funding new ability acquire agreements with photo voltaic crops beneath instruction through the investigation, producing substantial-scale crops riskier.
In the meantime, privately funded corporations are bracing for a pullback.
- VC traders are counseling their portfolio corporations to reign in shelling out in preparation for tougher occasions forward.
- Startups and big tech companies alike have paused selecting or now lowered headcount as just one evaluate to get their paying out underneath handle.
Our believed bubble: Colossus is most likely the first of a lot of providers cutting headcount in the months and months forward.