UiPath Lays Off 400 Employees as Part of Restructure

Robotic processing automation (RPA) services provider UiPath has laid off 400 employees, with some reports suggesting that even the company’s chief financial officer is stepping down.

The startup unicorn, whose valuations reached US$7 billion after a US$568 million Series D funding round earlier this year, has attributed the layoff to a restructuring process.

Not all analysts are ready to buy this narrative, with some of them saying that UiPath could be trying not to become another WeWork, a co-working space provider that is aggressively downsizing its workforce and shuttering offices in a desperate bid to avoid going bankrupt.

Uipath, whose annual recurring revenue topped up US$300 million this year, has employed more than 3,000 people across 30 offices across the world. “Even with these layoffs, we will end the year with 50% more employees than in January this year,” a Romanian news portal, Romania Insider, reported citing the company’s statement.

The company’s CFO Marie Meyers had come on board only at the beginning of this year after leaving Hewlett Packard. Considering the Romanian publication, Meyers has not been fired, but she is leaving on her own.

Uipath was founded in Romania, where nearly one-third of employees are working.

“The management team has decided to reorganize business lines that don’t align with the current focus and implement changes that help maintain the UiPath organizational culture,” the company stated.

Uipath, which sells technology platforms that help businesses automate many of their repetitive functions, claims to be controlling 20% of the global RPA market.