Employees from Lever, the hot recruiting-software startup run by an ex-Googler, say the company just cut about 40% of its workforce as hiring dries up amid the sharp economic downturn

Glassdoor/Lever

Lever CEO Sarah Nahm.

• Lever, the software startup that helps companies streamline hiring, laid off close to 40% of its workforce on Wednesday, according to employees from the company.
• Lever did not respond to Business Insider's request for comment.
• At the beginning of the year, VCs predicted that the startup, run by All Raise leader and ex-Googler Sarah Nahm, would boom thanks to its ability to let hiring managers focus on people rather than the process.
• But as the coronavirus outbreak has forced companies to put a pause on their hiring process, the company itself has also felt the need to cut costs.
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Lever, the software startup that helps companies streamline hiring, laid off a significant number of employees from its workforce, according to former employees who posted on LinkedIn.

In a LinkedIn post, one employee said that close to 40% of the workforce - translating to approximately 109 employees, based on Pitchbook data - had been affected by the cuts.

Another employee that Business Insider spoke to confirmed that number.

Lever did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

The startup has made its name off its analytical tools, which hiring managers can use to get tips on how often they should contact candidates, and who on the team is best positioned to get through to the candidates. Lever's service can even give insight on the average time it will take to fill a position.

Until the coronavirus outbreak hit the country, Lever's prospects were especially promising. VCs had touted Lever as a startup that would thrive in 2020, because it simplified recruiting, a process that typically sucked up time and effort. It counted Netflix and Cirque de Soleil among its customers as early as 2017.

"Lever streamlines that process to enable hiring managers focus on people, not process," Aileen Lee of Cowboy Ventures told Business Insider's Julie Bort in January.

And its CEO, Sarah Nahm, is something of a role model in Silicon Valley: an ex-Googler who once worked as a speechwriter for Marissa Mayer, Nahm is now also a leader the VC networking organization for women, All Raise.

But the economic downturn prompted by the coronavirus outbreak has created second- and third-order effects among all industries, causing many to scramble to pause hiring, cut costs, lay off workers and even shutter their businesses - which in turn strangles Lever's own source of customers.

Lever raised a total of $72.8M in funding over six funding rounds and counts venture capital firms like Khosla Ventures and Index Ventures among its backers. It last raised $40 million in 2017.

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