Portland-based Urban Airship says it has eliminated seven positions, or 3 percent of total jobs, over the past month-and-a-half as it realigns its workforce to match a broader strategic shift at the company.
The startup, which helps big brands deliver push notifications to mobile devices, says the layoffs aren’t about cutting back, but instead growing in different areas it gets ready to launch new products. The company points out it’s hiring for 14 new positions right now, so the headcount will keep growing once the dust settles.
A spokesman tells GeekWire that Urban Airship wants to broaden its product offering to include tools that help business gather and act on user engagement data from mobile devices. The company already launched one tool that lets brands look at analytics in real time, and it says another product announcement is coming tomorrow.
“This strategy required some realignment to navigate the opportunity ahead,” communications director Corey Gault wrote in an email to GeekWire.
The cuts included two workers at the company’s San Francisco office, one in London and four at the Portland headquarters.
The job cuts were first reported by the Portland Business Journal.
Urban Airship is one of Portland’s most promising up-and-coming tech companies, sitting at No. 29 on our GeekWire 200 list of trending startups. The company has raised a total of $67.6 million since it was founded in 2009, with the most recent $9 million round closing in February. It also brought in new CEO Brett Caine in October of 2014.
