Plaid lays off 20% of staff, cites "macro-economic shifts"

San Francisco-based fintech start-up Plaid has announced plans to lay off 260 employees, representing around 20% of its workforce.

The company, which was last valued at $13.4 billion in April 2021, has not disclosed which teams will be affected by the redundancies. CEO Zach Perret cited macroeconomic shifts and slower-than-expected growth among its financial services clients as the reasons for the downsizing.

"The simple reality is that due to these macroeconomic changes, our pace of cost growth outstripped our pace of revenue growth. I made the decision to hire and invest ahead of revenue growth, and the current economic slowdown has meant that this revenue growth did not materialize as quickly as expected," CEO and co-founder Zach Perret said in a letter to employees.

Plaid is offering laid-off employees 16 weeks' pay and the equivalent of six months of cash to pay health insurance premiums.

The company said it's also accelerating equity grants for employees who worked at the company for more than one year to the February 15, 2023 vesting date. It is also waiving the one-year cliff for workers with equity who haven’t yet reached their one-year vesting cliff.