Redeem now

• Faire laid off about 250 employees on Wednesday.
• It was the second time in just over a year that the wholesale marketplace company laid off workers. 
• A spokesperson said the layoffs were part of a company-wide restructuring.

Faire, the wholesale marketplace company, laid off about 250 employees on Wednesday.

A spokesperson confirmed the job cuts, saying the layoffs were done in order to restructure Faire to "better align our teams with our long-term vision."

This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? Log in.

The layoffs were company-wide, Faire said. People in engineering, product, design, and data science were impacted, according to one person familiar with the situation.

"We built our former organizational structure with multiple layers of management to support our pace of hiring. When we slowed down hiring last year, naturally we weren't able to grow into that larger structure," the company said.

This is the second time in just over a year that the company has laid off workers, although this second restructuring appears to be bigger. It previously laid off about 7% of its workforce last October. Faire had approximately 1,200 employees at the time, The Information reported.

Faire is an online marketplace that connects independent brands with retailers that can stock their products in their stores. It was valued at $12.5 billion in May 2022 in a deal where the startup raised a $416 million extension to its Series G. Faire has raised over $1.4 billion since its founding in 2017. Its investors include Dragoneer Investment Group, Sequoia Capital, Founders Fund, and Forerunner Ventures.

Faire recently announced a partnership with Shopify that established Faire as the preferred wholesale marketplace for Shopify merchants. Shopify's point-of-sale technology is also now the preferred solution for Faire's customers. Shopify also became a shareholder in Faire as part of the deal, which Insider first reported on in July. The size of the investment was not disclosed.

"Our focus remains on being able to consistently support our independent retailer customer community as a reliable partner well into the future. We're thankful for the team members who've contributed to Faire's success so far, and are sad to part ways," the company said.

Tech companies continue to lay off workers at high rates. According to Layoffs.fyi, a website tracking all of the tech layoffs since the beginning of the pandemic, so far in 2023, more than 247,000 people have been laid off.

The e-commerce industry in particular has had to readjust to lower growth rates after seeing online sales soar during the earlier days of the pandemic. And, many startups have struggled as VC funding has slowed from highs in 2021.

Got a tip? Contact this reporter at mstone@insider.com, mlstone@protonmail.com, or on the secure messaging app Signal at (646) 889-2143 using a non-work phone.

Sign up for notifications from Insider! Stay up to date with what you want to know. Subscribe to push notifications

Watch: 10 companies that fell in the last decade

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7o8HSoqWeq6Oeu7S1w56pZ5ufony4tM6lnKyZnJp6tMDAq6uuqF2brqq%2BxGajmrGjYrynsoyapaismJq%2Fbn6UaWSepaChvLqxxKxka2hiaHpyfQ%3D%3D