, an Austin-based marketplace for on-demand services and skilled labor in the energy industry, has laid off more than 100 people, according to Austin Inno.
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The move comes a little over five months after RigUp raised a $300 million Series D round led by (a16z) at a reported valuation of $1.9 billion. The financing marked the largest funding round raised by an Austin company in 2019, according to Crunchbase data. Other investors include , U.K.-based , Brookfield Growth Partners and . Since its 2013 inception, RigUp has raised nearly $424 million, according to .
Austin Inno’s Brent Winstrom first , and reported that: “Several employees suggested on LinkedIn that the layoffs impacted a total of 120 people, including account executives and employees in several other roles. The company declined to cite the exact number of layoffs.� It is estimated that RigUp let go of about one-fourth of its staff.
RigUp’s platform matches contract workers with energy companies operating in the upstream, renewables, midstream and downstream sectors. In October, the company said it expected to exceed $2 billion in gross service volume on its platform in 2019, up more than 200 percent from 2018.
RigUp co-founder and CEO told Austin Inno that the layoffs were due to a combination of “the economic hit in oil and gas [and] … the impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak.�
He also told Winstrom that he and co-founder and COO Mike Witte were “forgoing their salaries and have shifted to minimum wage payment.�
I’ve reached out to the company for confirmation and will update this article if I get it, along with any further details.
The news comes after a week that saw a number of layoffs by startups either based in Austin or with a significant presence in the Texas capital.
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