Trucking news and briefs for Thursday, May 21, 2020:
Samsara lays off 300 employees
On Wednesday, the chief executive officer of ELD and mobile fleet management supplier Samsara circulated an internal memo announcing a layoff of 300 people or about 18% of its global workforce. The company later published a blog on its website noting the employment cuts.
The internal memo from CEO Sanjit Biswas cited the ongoing economic downturn as the reason for the cuts.
Since its founding in 2015, Samsara has grown to more than 15,000 customers. Its revenue has at least doubled every year and tripled in 2019. Samsara planned to again double revenues in 2020 and hired in advance to match the pace.
In the first quarter, the company nearly met its goals for revenue and customer growth, but the company now expects that growth to stall, citing truck and trailer orders by fleets as the reason for that expected plateau in growth.
The workforce cuts were primarily made to its business lines that have the longest path to profitability, Biswas said. These “frontier areas” are mostly in European countries. Reductions to its North American fleet business were narrower and focused primarily on administration and supporting teams for events.
Samsara also announced an additional $400 million investment round with plans to use the new capital reserves for research and development. The company’s previous investors have reinvested along with new investors who have experience helping companies with IPOs.
