Motive, formerly KeepTruckin, has laid off 237 workers — about 6% of its workforce — amid operating cost constraints and demand issues faced by the San Francisco-based freight solutions provider.
Motive CEO Shoaib Makani said the company experienced rapid growth, increasing from 1,450 to 3,700 employees over the last two years, fueled by “an unprecedented surge in new business formation and expansion of existing firms operating in the physical economy.”
“While the majority of our investment was well placed, it’s now clear that we over-hired in certain areas,” Makani said in a letter to employees posted on the company’s website. “Our small and medium size business (SMB) segment experienced rapid growth over the past two years and we scaled our SMB sales team in line. However recently the market shifted. Fuel prices are up sharply, the cost of capital has increased, and demand is contracting.”
Makani said the layoffs affected employees working in the company’s SMB segment as well as the recruiting department.
Makani did not specify where the layoffs took place. Along with San Francisco, Motive has offices in Nashville, Tennessee, and Buffalo, New York, as well as Canada, India, Pakistan and Taiwan.
The layoffs come several months after Motive raised $150 million in Series F funding, helping the company reach a $2.85 billion valuation.
Motive was founded in 2013 in San Francisco as KeepTruckin. In April, the company changed its name to Motive as it aimed to provide hardware and software applications for industries outside of trucking and logistics.
Some of Motive’s product offerings include an AI dashcam to enable fleets to detect unsafe driving behavior and help businesses reduce accidents and a corporate card allowing fleet managers the ability to track fleet operations.
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