Carbon Health is latest digital health company to lay off workers
- Erin Brodwin, author of Axios Pro: Health Tech Deals
Illustration: Gabriella Turrisi/Axios
Hybrid primary care company Carbon Health laid off roughly a quarter of its corporate staff this week, Jen Zhu, the company's former senior manager of program development and one of the individuals impacted by the cut, writes on LinkedIn.
Why it matters: Layoffs are yet another sign that the pandemic-fueled honeymoon digital health has enjoyed for years is coming to an end, and we're only just beginning to get an idea of the kinds of ramifications that will have on employees, patients and the public health sector writ large.
Of note: Zhu highlighted a handful of coworkers who had lost their jobs, including several program managers who'd joined Carbon from Steady Health following Carbon's acquisition of the virtual diabetes clinic last summer.
- Others included designers, engineers and data scientists, the company's principal designer Bobby Genalo writes on Twitter.
Context: In the midst of public and private market reckoning, tech companies are being forced to downsize, and the digital health sector is no exception. Besides Carbon, several companies in the sector have laid off workers in the last two months, including...
- Thirty Madison, which laid off 24 employees last month following its merger with women-focused digital pharmacy Nurx.
- DivvyDose, which laid off 41 full-time and 21 part-time employees last month, per the QuadCity Times.
- Noom, which laid off 25% of its workforce in April, per Insider.
Flashback: For its part, Carbon Health had been on a growth spree, acquiring remote monitoring startup Alertive Healthcare last October and Steady Health last June.
- Also last summer, Carbon added some high-profile talent, including former Khosla Ventures partner Nita Sommers and former Apple Health leader Myoung Cha.
By the numbers: In this year's second quarter, nearly 21,000 tech workers lost their jobs via layoffs, according to aggregator layoffs.fyi.
- Carbon's cut would represent roughly 250 workers, according to LinkedIn data.
After Axios reached out to Carbon Health CEO and co-founder Eren Bali, he posted a message outlining the cuts on the company's blog and noting that they represent 8% of Carbon's global staff footprint.