Cloud security company Lacework is laying off a significant chunk of its workforce as a result of restructuring.
The firm blamed the layoffs on a “seismic shift” in public and private markets, which have forced it to restructure and change its plan.
“While we do not have control of the environment around us, we do have a responsibility to control how we operate our business and make changes as needed to best position the company for continued and long-term success,” the company said.
“We have adjusted our plan to increase our cash runway through to profitability and significantly strengthened our balance sheet so we can be more opportunistic around investment opportunities and weather uncertainty in the macro environment,” it added.
News of the layoffs came to light on Wednesday, hours before the company published a blog post explaining its decision. Gergely Orosz of The Pragmatic Engineer Newsletter broke the news when he tweeted that the company was laying off roughly 300 employees, or 20% of its workforce.
Lacework has confirmed for SecurityWeek that 20% of staff is being laid off, but said that the actual number reported on Twitter is “a significant overestimate.”
In a press release issued in March, the cloud security company said it had over 1,000 employees, 85% of which were hired after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Lacework was slammed on social media for the way it handled the layoffs, but the company argued that it had delayed the broader notification to take the time to speak with each of the impacted people individually.
Several companies have offered jobs to those who were terminated by Lacework.
The layoffs were announced just months after the company raised $1.3 billion in a second Series D funding round and was valued at $8.3 billion.
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