High-tech crisis: Hundreds of employees were laid off - 35 on Wednesday in "Anodot" start-up

The Israeli start-up company Anodot joins Ituro, Verbit, Bizabo, Transmit, Sqream, Leitrix and Nexar in the current wave of layoffs in high-tech and is laying off 35 employees, who make up 27% of the workforce in a company that employs 129 people. The layoffs will be from all parts of the company, which was established in 2014 and has raised about $ 62 million to date, including Intel Capital, Softbank Ventures Asia, Samsung NEXT, La Maison, Keren Alef and Disruptive Technologies.
"We are in the process of laying off 35 employees. Half of them work in Israel and the rest abroad," says Amit Levy, the company's VP of marketing for Calcalist. "The global economic situation affects our ability to work and the reassessment is beyond the trajectory of profitability quickly. All employees who separate from us and are dear to us, an orderly process is found to find them a job. All company departments were affected by the layoffs. The transition to our profitability does not see such a need. "
A company engaged in data analysis based on advanced AI techniques, and among its customers are companies such as Foursquare, Lift, Upwork, Wise and Microsoft. The technology developed at the company allows companies to track a large amount of data and improve performance in real time. Anodes was founded in 2014, by three entrepreneurs - David Drey (CEO), Dr. Ira Cohen (Chief Scientist) and Shai Lang.
After a period in which most of the headlines dealt with the recruitment of large employees in these companies, in recent weeks there have been increasing reports of layoffs of employees, whether employed in Israel or abroad Without raising additional capital.
Since the beginning of the week, it has been possible to name hundreds of those laid off, and only today (Tuesday) did the start-up conference Bizabo, which is laying off about 120 employees, join the list; Ituro, which operates in the field of securities trading, and lays off 100 employees; Verbit Transcription Company, which lays off about 50 employees; And the Cyber ​​Transmit Security Unicorn, which is laying off about 30 workers.
The technology company Bizabo, which operates in the field of conferences, is laying off about 120 employees - which is about 30% of its 400 employees. Bizabo has five branches around the world, and the layoffs are horizontal across all parts of the company. The development center in Israel will lay off about 35 of the 120 employees. The initial information about the dismissals was obtained from the "Startup" website.
Bizabo has developed a Wix-like platform for building conference sites, managing the list of participants and creating business social networks around them. The platform allows, among other things, to broadcast virtual conferences directly from the program on the conference website.
The company enjoyed investments of about $ 195 million in its ten years of existence. About $ 50 million of them did not go into the coffers, but were received in scandalous deals, in which investors, founders and employees sold shares. Her most recent recruitment was in December 2020, more than a year and a half ago, in which she made four acquisitions (x.ai, Whalebone, TeeVid and Click) which added several dozen employees - so some of the layoffs are a reorganization of the company, involving downsizing and reshuffling.
For the past two months, Bizabo has been in a legal dispute in courts in New York and Israel with Pixline, which provided it with solutions for managing physical conferences. The conflict raises serious allegations from both sides, about hacking into a computer and stealing hundreds of sensitive documents whose use, ostensibly, has nullified huge deals that Bizabo had in the field of conferences.
Ma'aran Ben-Shoshan, CEO and co-founder of Bizabo, said: "This is one of the most challenging moments we have faced since the company's inception. The decision is difficult but is the right one for Bizabo's employees, customers and shareholders. The decision was made as part of preparations for a long period of cooling and uncertainty in the market, and in order to ensure compliance with targets and improve profitability.
"The company will help leaving employees find new opportunities to continue their journey, and has assembled a human resources team dedicated to this task. The company will provide benefits of increased compensation, about two weeks at the employer's expense and another week for each year of seniority. Its employees date back to the Corona period. "
Dismissals also at the high-tech company Verbit, which develops technology for automatic transcription. It is laying off 10% of its 520 employees - though it has raised more than $ 300 million since its inception. About half of the amount was raised just eight months ago. According to the company, 30 workers will be fired in Israel.
Verbit's strategy is to acquire traditional transcription companies and assimilate its transcription technology in them, thus improving their operations. In November, the company set a target of 25 acquisitions within three years. Verbit reached an annual revenue rate of $ 100 million, about half of the amount in an inorganic manner. The company received a value of $ 2 billion in the last round of recruitment, and has since increased its number of employees by 50, from 470.
The dismissals also reached Ituru. A few days after the official cancellation of the merger with Spock, the Israeli company Itoro (eToro) announced about 100 of its employees - about 55 of them in Israel - about their dismissal. The company, which has developed a trading platform for shares and cryptocurrencies, employs about 1,700 people worldwide, more than 700 of them in Israel.