Bird cuts 120 jobs as part of ‘strategic realignment’

Cloud communication service Bird has cut 120 jobs — roughly one-third of its total workforce. The Amsterdam-based firm — formerly known as MessageBird — plans to realign its global operations amid the ongoing AI boom, TechCrunch has exclusively learned. Bird has since confirmed the news. The Dutch startup contacted impacted employees on Friday.

The move comes just a year after Bird cut 90 employees following its rebrand. The company also slashed prices at the time in an effort to take on the likes of Twilio, Klaviyo, and Attentive. The startup offers a CRM (customer relationship management) platform for marketing, sales, and payments via email, SMS, and WhatsApp.

Bird founder and CEO Robert Vis confirmed the number of employees impacted, adding that most of the roles were in Europe.

“While Bird was founded in Amsterdam and built strong European roots, our customer footprint has grown significantly in the Americas and Asia. This realignment will position our teams closer to our customers, enabling us to better serve them in their local time zones and cultural contexts,” Vis said in a statement emailed to TechCrunch.

The startup counts Meta, PayPal, Square, and Uber as its key customers. It offers a unified solution to let businesses communicate with their customers via different channels, including email, SMS, voice, and WhatsApp.

Vis asserted the layoffs were “not a cost-reduction exercise” as the startup’s “financials remain strong.” Instead, AI adoption has contributed to the reduction of roles. The list of similarly impacted companies includes Sprinklr, Workday, and Okta.

“The changes will help us return to the agile, focused model that drove our early success — starting with SMS and expanding to become one of the world’s largest providers of business communications solutions,” Vis said.

The executive stated that the affected employees would receive “comprehensive transition support” without sharing specifics on the severance.

In 2021, Bird raised $800 million in a Series C extension featuring Tiger Global, Eurazeo, and Owl Rock. That followed a $240 million round that valued the startup at $3 billion. The startup acquired email marketing platform SparkPost in 2021 for $600 million.