Paddle, the UK unicorn provider of payments infrastructure for SaaS companies, has laid off eight per cent of its workforce, citing the need to cut costs amidst rising inflation and interest rates.
The firm, which last year raised $200 million in Series D equity and debt financing at a valuation of $1.4bn, was a beneficiary of the Covid era as the shift to digital saw it sign up a slew of software companies who wanted to sell globally.
Paddle says it saw transaction volume grow more than 3.5x over this period but now, says CEO Christian Owens in a memo to staff posted on LinkedIn, it is having to readjust.
Owens writes: "We are well positioned to weather the impending storm, with a strong balance sheet and a product that solves a critical need for software companies."
Nevertheless, the company is laying off eight per cent of its 350+ employees because it needs to cut costs, in part because he "made two key mistakes".
"The first was assuming that the growth our customers saw during Covid was a signal of fundamental change and the growth would be sustained largely in perpetuity. The second was allowing our operating costs to increase at a faster rate than we were growing our revenue," he writes.