Scott Goss

The News Journal

SevOne laid off as many as two dozen workers in Delaware last week as part of a “reprioritization” that resulted in job cuts throughout the company’s workforce.

Company officials on Monday said “less than 10 percent” of SevOne’s global workforce received a pink slip late last week, but declined to provide an exact number.

As of late 2015, the tech company employed about 525 workers worldwide, including more than 230 in Delaware.

SevOne declined to provide a worker headcount as of this month.

In a statement, SevOne officials described the layoffs as an effort to reposition the company for growth.

“The changes SevOne made will allow us to focus our efforts on our core business and redeploy resources to our highest priorities – all of which will enable us to grow,” they said.

SevOne: Tech company strives for a 'culture of awesome'

All of the workers who lost their jobs were notified Thursday.

Some left the company that day, while others will remain for a week or more, a spokeswoman said.

The job cuts reportedly were not limited to one department or office.

A source familiar with the company said SevOne may be halting growth in its software-as-a-service model in which its network monitoring applications are licensed on a subscription basis.

Company officials declined to comment on that speculation.

Whatever the reason, the layoffs represent a sudden pivot for SevOne, which had been steadily growing its workforce in recent years.

The company hired more than 200 new workers in 2015, including dozens of engineers, software developers, customer support and quality-control staff.

Many of those who lost their jobs last week are believed to have been hired in the last year.

SevOne’s layoffs also come about six months after the network infrastructure monitoring company founded in Delaware landed a $50 million investment deal led by Boston-based private equity firm Bain Capital.

At the same time, SevOne quietly moved its corporate headquarters to Boston, where most of its investors and member of its board of directors are located.

The News Journal broke the news of the move in November, a decision downplayed by both company executives and state officials who had previously hailed the company as a homegrown success.

Despite the move, SevOne’s largest base of operations remains in Delaware.

SevOne shows off new Del. tech center

In November, the company opened a 50,000-square-foot Technology and Innovation Center in the Phase II building at University of Delaware’s Science, Technology and Advance Research campus.

SevOne signed a 13-year-lease for that facility, a deal supported by more than $1 million in grants from the Delaware Economic Development Office.

In exchange for the state support, SevOne promised to add another 150 jobs at its Newark facility by January 2018 – a goal company officials previously said they were halfway to meeting.

As of Monday, none of the approved grant funds tied to hiring had been dispersed, according to a DEDO spokeswoman.

SevOne officials said the company expects to meet its hiring goals and will continue to add staff, both globally and in Delaware, this year.

“We are extremely confident that we will continue our recent growth trajectory,” company officials said. “There should be no impact to the hiring goals related to the DEDO funds.”

SevOne was founded in 2005 by a trio of UD grads, including newlyweds Vess and Tanya Bakalov and the best man at their wedding, Jim Young.

In 2014, the privately held company reported annual revenue of $64.5 million.

Last month, the company appointed Rafe Brown as its new chief financial officer. Brown, the former chief financial officer at Massachusetts-based software company Pegasystems, succeeded Mike Shanahan, who was named senior vice president of financial operations.

As of Monday, the company had not released its revenue totals for 2015.

Contact business reporter Scott Goss at (302) 324-2281, sgoss@delawareonline.com or on Twitter @ScottGossDel.

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