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Genealogy giant Ancestry laid off 81 employees as it continues to wrestle with growing the revenue it makes from subscribers, Endpoints News has learned. It’s the company’s fourth round of layoffs in four years.
Ancestry CEO Deb Liu announced the cuts, which impacted employees across the organization, in a March 14 memo to staff that was seen by Endpoints. The cuts affected around 6% of a workforce of over 1,300.
“While our core business remains solid, subscriber revenue growth has continued to be a challenge,” Liu said in the memo. “In light of flat revenue and rising expenses, we are taking steps to better align our cost structure to where the business is today and increasing focus on our priorities until we return to stronger growth.”
A spokesperson for Ancestry confirmed the 2024 layoffs, attributing the decision to setting up Ancestry for “long-term success.” The reductions happened after the company mentioned in a town hall earlier this year that it has no immediate plans to reduce headcount, according to three people who heard about the matter directly.
Since 2020, Ancestry has gone through four rounds of layoffs as businesses that help people learn about their ancestry deal with waning consumer interest, according to materials seen by Endpoints and reporting by other media organizations.
In 2023, for example, the company let go 98 employees in a round of cuts, according to another internal document seen by Endpoints. Ancestry did not comment on the 2023 layoff round. In 2020, Ancestry cut around 100 people, and in 2021, the company closed down Ancestry Health, just 15 months after its launch, leading to 77 job cuts.
23andMe, the second-largest company in the consumer genetics space, cut its staff by a quarter in three rounds of layoffs and a subsidiary sale over the past year.
Ancestry hired Liu, a former Meta executive, in 2021 to drive up subscriptions after private equity behemoth Blackstone acquired the company for $4.7 billion the year before. Over the past few years, the company has launched new features, such as a DNA testing service for dogs and a tool that weaves historical personal records into stories. But Ancestry struggled to grow subscriber revenue in its core product, a service that helps people discover their family history, the memo said.
“The next 6 months are critical for Ancestry to demonstrate that we can accelerate subscription revenue growth this year. We are not changing our strategy, but we are prioritizing work to improve conversion and traffic to drive revenue in 2024,” Liu said in the memo.
Liu also said that the company’s investments into its tech and product grew by 11% over five years, and that was growing faster than its revenue grew over that time.
While some products are driving revenue, subscriptions to its core family history business have lagged, according to the memo, and as a result, Ancestry can no longer “disproportionately invest in longer-term product feature work ahead of revenue growth.”