Evernote, the Redwood City-based note-taking company, on Friday, announced that it has laid off most of its employees in the U.S. and Chile as it is transitioning most of its operations to Europe, the home of its Italian parent company, Bending Spoons.
Talking about the move, Evernote said the shift is intended to “boost operational efficiency and to make the most of the Bending Spoons employer brand, which is extremely strong in Europe.”
The sudden plan to relocate to Europe led to the need of laying off Evernote’s staff in Chile and the San Francisco Bay area. As a result, the layoff communication was sent to the affected employees on July 5th.
Those impacted by the layoffs will be provided with a “substantial separation package”, which includes 16 weeks of salary, up to a year of health insurance coverage, and a performance bonus paid pro-rata as if “year-end performance targets have already been achieved.”
Evernote is also offering additional support to those in need, such as affected workers who are on a visa.
“Our plans for Evernote are as ambitious as ever: Going forward, a dedicated (and growing) team based in Europe will continue to assume ownership of the Evernote product. This team will be in an ideal position to leverage the extensive expertise and strength of the 400-plus workforce at Bending Spoons, many of whom have been working on Evernote full-time since the acquisition,” Evernote Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Franceso Patarnello wrote in a blog post.
“We’re extremely thankful for the efforts and commitment of all our departing colleagues, and we wish them the very best for the future.”
For those unaware, Evernote was acquired by Bending Spoons, a Milan-based app developer, in November 2022, with the purchase getting completed in January 2023.
Back then, Evernote’s CEO was quoted as saying the acquisition will help the company achieve exciting new heights, using Bending Spoons’ expertise and wide range of proprietary technologies to make Evernote sharper, faster, more reliable, and more robust than ever before.
In February 2023, Bending Spoons laid off 129 U.S.-based Evernote staffers, as the app had been “unprofitable for years” and was “unsustainable in the long term.”
While Evernote did not specify how many employees were affected by the latest round of layoffs, LinkedIn posts from affected workers indicate that employees in engineering and IT were affected due to the layoff.
