VSCO, one of Oakland’s most prominent tech startups, laid off 45 employees in the wake of economic disruptions caused by the coronavirus.

The maker of a popular photo sharing and editing app cut around 30% of its more than 150-person staff as the economy swiftly tumbled.

“2020 was staged to be a year where we would continue to forward invest into our business. Overnight our environment changed. We realized that we would need to shift towards running a self-sustaining business,” CEO Joel Flory wrote in a LinkedIn post.

The downsizing is part of a wave of Bay Area tech cutbacks that includes 1,000 lost jobs at Yelp, 450 layoffs at Eventbrite and 235 job cuts at The RealReal; those three companies are headquartered in San Francisco.

VSCO is headquartered in Oakland, which had seen strong interest from new arrivals like Credit Karma and Square in office space, along with thousands of new apartments. The fallout from the coronavirus, including a pause on most commercial construction, mass layoffs and shuttered retailers could threaten the city’s economic boom.

VSCO will provide a minimum of seven weeks of severance pay and two months of health care coverage, Flory said. It will also help former employees find new jobs and extend equity sales

NPR first reported the layoffs.

VSCO, whose name derives from Visual Supply Company and is pronounced “visco,” has over 20 million active users and around 2 million paid subscribers, according to TechCrunch. Users can pay $19.99 a year for features like additional photo editing filters.

The company differs in significant ways from Facebook-owned Instagram, starting with its much smaller user base: Instagram has more than 1 billion users. VSCO has no likes or comments sections on posted photos and is less reliant on advertising.

The app gained broader cultural prominence with the arrival of “VSCO girls” on social media, characterized as eco-conscious, trendy teenagers whose distinctive look online came in part from the app’s artistic photo filters.

“Our mission and vision remain unchanged. Our ability to provide a place for creative expression, inspiration and connection is even more important than ever right now,” Flory wrote.

Roland Li is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: roland.li@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @rolandlisf