Cowbell, which offers an AI-driven cyber insurance platform for small-and-medium businesses, has been one of the most high-profile players in the emerging cyber insurance industry. The company has ramped up clients and revenue rapidly while attracting large investments.
But Cowbell has now announced layoffs. “I am announcing a 12% reduction of our current workforce, which will impact a total of 28 talented Cowbellers. This was an extremely difficult call to make and was a last resort, after considering all other options,” said Cowbell CEO Jack Kudale in this announcement.
Kudale added: “I want to provide some context as to why we made this decision. Although policyholder growth has been strong and the company is closing out on its largest quarter to date, a prolonged softer market cycle coupled with a rise in fixed costs necessitated us to carefully and realistically evaluate our organizational structure and cost base.”
The move comes amid troubles for some vendors in the larger cybersecurity market. “Hundreds of cybersecurity workers have received pink slips in the last few months, despite early expectations that the industry would be spared the tech sector’s wave of layoffs. Driving the news: In the last month, at least nine cybersecurity companies have announced layoffs,” Axios reported earlier this month.
Axios notes the cyber industry is under-going significant secular growth. So is the cyber insurance market, as we’ve reported. But the cyber insurance market cannot escape all the macro economic trends and challenges in the over-all tech environment. In addition, the industry continues to attract strong, well-funded entrants, increasing competition.
We’ll continue to follow this trend.
