Glossier Inc., the online beauty startup that sought to upend the cosmetics counter, is scaling back its tech ambitions.
The New York-based company is laying off more than a third of its corporate workforce, including technology personnel, according to an email to staff Wednesday. The company, valued at more than $1 billion by its venture backers, said it would shift its focus to its core makeup and skin-care business.
“Over the past two years, we prioritized certain strategic projects that distracted us from the laser-focus we needed to have on our core business: scaling our beauty brand,” Emily Weiss, founder and chief executive, wrote in the email. “We also got ahead of ourselves on hiring. These missteps are on me.”
Ms. Weiss also wrote in the staff email that the company will outsource some aspects of its technology strategy.
A Glossier representative confirmed the layoffs, and said that more than 80 jobs had been eliminated. The layoffs were reported earlier by Modern Retail.
The layoffs come a week after Peloton Interactive Inc. CEO John Foley told staff that the company’s previously announced cost-cutting review would likely result in job losses. Peloton’s share price and revenue soared early in the pandemic along with orders, but its market value has since plunged.
Glossier, which launched in 2014 as an outgrowth of the Into the Gloss beauty website, helped popularize minimal makeup looks with Gen Z and millennial consumers.
While it raised funding and gained prominence as a direct-to-consumer online brand, it eventually explored opening bricks-and-mortar locations while touting itself as a “digital-first” beauty company.
Glossier had a store in the Soho section of New York City that was closed along with other stores in 2020.
Photo: Richard B. Levine/Zuma Press
In 2020, Glossier closed its stores and laid off all of its retail workers, who already had been furloughed in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
In a return to physical retail, Glossier opened three stores in Seattle, Los Angeles and London in 2021.
Glossier last July raised $80 million in venture capital funding and said the proceeds would help grow its business, which had more than 5 million customers world-wide.
Lone Pine Capital led the funding round, which valued Glossier at $1.8 billion, according to PitchBook data. Investors including Index Ventures and Sequoia Capital also participated in the round.
Write to Charity L. Scott at [email protected]
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