Sana, a healthcare insurance company, Tuesday announced it has laid off 19 percent of its staff.
Will Young, Sana CEO and Co-Founder, announced the layoffs in a LinkedIn Post late Tuesday afternoon. He also posted a statement on the company’s blog. He said the layoffs were painful but necessary to keep the company operating successfully in today’s environment.
Laid-off Sana employees began posting “open to work” status on LinkedIn Tuesday. Sana had around 210 employees. A source reported 40 employees were let go this week.
Sana is providing its laid off employees severance pay equal to three months of their base salary, paid medical, dental and vision insurance coverage through May 31st, the ability to keep their laptops, removal of the one year cliff for equity and three months of career services through RiseSmart, a job placement services firm.
For the past few years, Sana has focused on “accelerating growth and product development came at the cost of higher risk tolerance and greater expenses,” according to Young’s blog post. He wrote that the company is “fundamentally well-positioned to weather downturns.
“However, we need our investments to reflect the realities of the current macroeconomic environment and funding climate,” Young wrote. “This means re-orienting our company for leaner times today so we can continue delivering on our mission decades from now.”
To date, Sana, founded in 2017 by Young and Nathan Hackley, has raised $107 million. In June of 2022, Sana closed on a $60 million in Series B funding.
Sana provides health care options for small businesses. The company reports that Sana’s customers often save up to 20 percent compared to legacy insurers. It also provides telehealth care and low co-pays. Itoperates in eight states.
In January of 2022, the company opened Sana MD in Austin. It is Sana’s first primary care health center for members. In addition to in-person office visits, Sana gives employees access to virtual care with providers specializing in primary care, pediatrics, maternity and mental health.
The news of Sana’s layoffs come a week after Decent, another healthcare startup based in Austin, announced plans to wind down operations to a core team and layoff most of its 40 employees.
Nationwide, tech companies have been trimming staff. Zoom announced on Tuesday it was cutting 1,300 employees, according to the New York Times. Other tech companies in Austin laying off employees include Dell, which announced this week plans to cut 6,500 employees worldwide, according to the Times. Microsoft, Alphabet, Salesforce, Meta, Amazon and PayPal have all announced layoffs recently, the New York Times reported.