It’s a rough day for Dataminr, the New York-based big data unicorn, valued at $4.1 billion as of late. TechCrunch has learned that the company — which uses artificial intelligence and big data algorithms to provide predictive information about news and other global events — is laying off about 20% of its staff today, or about 150 people. It cites the impact of the economic environment, operational efficiencies and “the recent rapid developments of our AI platform,” according to a note from founder and CEO Ted Bailey, shared with us by a source.
In the company-wide note we saw, staff were told to work from home today while they awaited details on whether they would be part of the affected group of workers. The company had signaled to staff since October that a restructuring was to take place, although it is not clear which business areas are affected, nor what the state of the company’s operations has been recently.
Bailey noted in the note that the restructuring measures will “put Dataminr on a very strong financial footing going forward.” The company will look to further advance its AI platform and products – especially with the launch of a new AI platform in Q1 that will combine predictive AI with genetic AI – but even with the investment these will require , as a result of the moves it is making today, “Dataminr will have a multi-year cash runway and a near-term path to profitability,” he continued. (This potentially also means he is preparing for a scenario in which he does not raise more outside funding.)
We reached out to Bailey, the company’s media relations team, and various other people to confirm the details a source gave us (who, unfortunately, appears to be among those affected: really sorry again, man). One of those people, who asked not to be named, also confirmed the details. In the meantime, there are now posts on LinkedIn from others hearing the news through the grapevine and looking to hire.
And just as we were about to post about it, a company representative confirmed the memo.
Founded in 2009, Dataminr first emerged at a time when we were seeing the emergence of companies using intelligent big data techniques to analyze unstructured data from social media posts and combine it with structured and unstructured data from other sources to understand public sentiment and other ideas.
Dataminr took this idea and applied it precisely to information about world events and other news. Users equipped with mobile phones used platforms like Twitter as an outlet to post what they saw. Dataminr leveraged this, combined it with other data sources, and was able to find a development just as it was happening, often ahead of the rest of the world jumping on the news.
Not surprisingly, some of the data it collected and how it was used caused controversy Over the years. But that didn’t seem to stop the company from gaining traction. Dataminr has found success with key partnerships with companies such as Twitter and customers in government, enterprise, financial services and media.
And in the heady funding days of the 2010s, he raised money — lots of it. It was last valued at $4.1 billion when it raised $475 million in 2021. In total, it has raised more than $1 billion, with its 100+ investors including Fidelity and Morgan Stanley, as well as Venrock, IVP and many others. (Twitter, now called X, was once an investor as well, though it divested its stake some time ago.) PitchBook data states that it has raised an undisclosed amount for further funding in two separate installments in the last year.
Dataminr has always had a large number of “subject matter experts” on staff along with engineers and sales and customer success specialists. In more recent years, and likely this year, the company has really doubled down on the AI aspect of its technology stack, one reason why it can see a path forward by reducing its workforce without impacting business.