Cybersecurity firm Bishop Fox laid off about 50 employees — or 13% of its workforce — on Tuesday, the company told TechCrunch.
The layoffs come just days after the company through a party at the RSA cybersecurity conference, where the company apparently served branded drinks which he called “cyber soup”. Official Bishop Fox Twitter account said last week that the company will hold “other events in Vegas later this year,” referring to the Black Hat and Def Con security conferences held annually in Las Vegas.
Bishop Fox’s spokesman Kevin Kosh said in an email that the company has event space at RSA “booked several months in advance and is primarily secure for broadcast purposes in live stream (mimicking the one we did for DefCon), which was a forum to engage and share knowledge with the broader community.The reception followed that for attendees, crew, industry friends and RSA attendees.”
The company declined to say how much it spent on the RSA party. Kosh confirmed that the company had around 400 employees before yesterday’s layoffs.
“We have made these changes proactively in response to the global economic situation and the opportunities we have identified to make our business more efficient. While demand for our solutions remains strong and our business is stable, we cannot ignore market uncertainty and investment trends in this very different global economy,” said Bishop Fox CEO Vinnie Liu. in a statement sent to TechCrunch. “Bishop Fox remains healthy and we continue to be optimistic about our growth and technology investments over the coming quarters and years. Our company’s cash reserves (including our Series B capital raise), combined with this restructuring, allow us to maintain a strong financial position that enables scalability, innovation and, of course, the delivery of solutions. high quality that our customers expect.
Last year Bishop Fox raised a total of $129 million in a Series B round from multiple investors, including WestCap, NextEquity Partners and Rockpool Capital.
And last week the company announcement at RSA that it was expanding into the UK with “an initial focus on Northern European organisations”. In the announcement, the company also said it had “40% year-over-year growth.”
Employees who said they lost their jobs on Twitter called the layoffs “unexpected”. One said it was “due to internal restructuring”.
In September 2022, the company’s vice president of customer success, Christie Terrill said the company “was hiring at all levels” and the company’s official LinkedIn account written in a post that he “hired on several different teams in the Fox Den, from pentesting to technical editing to sales”.
The layoffs at Bishop Fox come as the entire tech industry suffers from the economic downturn. Yet some saw cybersecurity as a safer industry. Last year, a report of (ISC)²a nonprofit for “information security leaders,” predicted that cybersecurity teams “will be the least impacted by staff reductions as organizations anticipate an increase in cyber threats in 2023.”
The report was based on a survey of 1,000 senior executives. At the time, the general manager of ISC)², Clar Rosso said that “the importance placed on cybersecurity professionals, even in times of economic uncertainty, suggests that senior executives understand more than ever the critical need for a strong cybersecurity team.”
Do you have any more information on the layoffs at Bishop Fox? Or in another cybersecurity company? You can contact Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai securely on Signal at +1 917 257 1382, or via Wickr, Telegram and Wire @lorenzofb, or email lorenzo@techcrunch.com. You can also contact TechCrunch via SecureDrop.