RapidAPI, valued at $1 billion last year, cuts staff by 50%

April 26, 2023

RapidAPI, valued at $1 billion last year, cuts staff by 50%

Rapid, previously known as RapidAPI, is a startup that established an API marketplace worth $1 billion last year.

It has recently laid off 50% of its staff as part of a significant restructuring effort to “right-size the company,” according to an email from CEO Marc Friend to employees.

The email stated that Rapid had attempted to compete on too many fronts as a product company, resulting in organizational growth but a loss of agility.

Friend stated that Rapid would be more disciplined in its product focus and ruthless in customer success going forward.

The layoffs affected workers in Europe, Tel Aviv, and San Francisco, with a source familiar with the company’s internal operations stating that around 115 employees were affected across several departments, including sales, talent acquisition, engineering, product, and marketing.

While the company has confirmed a 50% reduction in team size and the closure of all open roles, it has declined to confirm the exact number of individuals affected.

RapidAPI, now known as Rapid, developed a platform that assists companies in discovering and incorporating third-party APIs, as well as managing their usage of their internal APIs.

In a Series D funding round led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2, the company raised $150 million in March 2022, with support from Qumra, Andreessen Horowitz, M12 (Microsoft’s Venture Fund), Viola Growth, Green Bay, and Grove Ventures. RapidAPI announced its rebranding to Rapid in November of 2021, revealing that over 4 million developers utilized its public API hub, which offered access to more than 40,000 APIs from companies like Microsoft, Google, and Twilio.

Rapid also claimed to have doubled its employee count to 200 over the previous year, as well as new enterprise customers such as Poly, ATA, Sun Life Financial, and Scuderia AlphaTauri.