Smartsheet, the Bellevue, Wash.-based enterprise software company that went private earlier this year in an $8.4 billion acquisition, has cut jobs amid its leadership transition.
A person familiar with the situation told GeekWire that more than 120 employees were impacted. Smartsheet confirmed Thursday that it made layoffs but declined to disclose a number.
The reductions come shortly after the exit of longtime CEO Mark Mader, who announced in August that he would retire at the end of September. Sunny Gupta, co-founder of Apptio and a well-known Seattle tech leader, was named acting CEO and executive chair at the time.
Smartsheet had grown to more than 3,300 people as of a year ago — tripling its headcount over the previous five years, according to its final quarterly filing as a public company.
The acquisition by Blackstone and Vista Equity Partners closed in January, taking Smartsheet off the New York Stock Exchange. The $8.4 billion deal represented a roughly 41% premium over the company’s average stock price in the months before reports of the transaction.
Vista and Blackstone are active in Seattle-area tech. Vista previously acquired Apptio and Avalara, while Blackstone acquired Rover.
In the months following the deal, Smartsheet was pushing aggressively into artificial intelligence, both in terms of internal AI usage and AI-based features in its products.
The Puget Sound Business Journal first reported news of the layoffs.
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