Ginkgo is reducing its headcount by at least 35% in a multi-year restructuring plan, the company announced in a securities filing on Monday.
The company laid out a plan last month to reduce its labor spending by 25%, across both research and development, and general and administrative departments. Implementation began last week, with an initial 158 layoffs in Massachusetts and 35 in California, according to state WARN reports. Ginkgo employed 1,218 people at the end of last year.
Timing on completing the restructuring plan “is not yet fully known,” the company said, but it expects staff cuts will be “substantially completed in 2025,” according to the securities filing. The reductions made this month are expected to cost Ginkgo at least $12 million in severance and other separation payments.
“These are amazing employees who are being let go as part of changes we are making to our technology platform at Ginkgo and a near-term focus on reaching breakeven,” CEO Jason Kelly said in an email to Endpoints News last week.
Kelly said the company is “very well capitalized, ending the first quarter with nearly $850M in cash and essentially no debt,” in a Tuesday post on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
First-quarter revenue came in at $38 million, down from $81 million over the same period last year. In a press release, Ginkgo blamed its lower revenue on “the expected ramp down of K-12 testing in Ginkgo’s Biosecurity segment.”