Greenhouse: Cut 28% of Staff When Hiring Stopped

Category: labor-market and HR software
Pandemic-layoff role: Additional sourced company
Last updated: 2026-11-01

In the archive

Article: How 41 Companies Handled Pandemic Layoffs

Founders, executives and investors

Daniel Chait and Jon Stross co-founded Greenhouse Software, based in New York. Chait was chief executive through the pandemic. Business Insider reported in April 2020 that the company had raised $110 million from venture investors including Benchmark Capital, most recently a $50 million Series D in July 2018.

In January 2021 Stross announced "a major investment from TPG Growth and The Rise Fund." He described The Rise Fund as a social-impact investing fund.

Business before the pandemic

Greenhouse sold hiring software to employers, and Business Insider noted that its customers included Airbnb, Slack, Venmo and Pinterest. Its revenue depended on those customers hiring. Chait wrote that before the virus hit, the company "was growing strongly and consistently for years."

What the pandemic did to the business

Greenhouse was not alone. Business Insider cited a Layoffs.fyi estimate that more than 2,000 startup employees in HR and recruiting had lost their jobs because of the pandemic, and its rival Lever had cut about 40% of its staff a week earlier. Chait said the 2020 product roadmap would focus on automating tasks for "lean recruiting teams."

Pandemic-relief role: a free layoff network

On May 28, 2020 Greenhouse's blog carried a post from Drafted, an integration partner for almost three years, which made its Layoff Network free to the whole Greenhouse community, customers or not. Drafted wrote that outplacement agencies usually charged employers more than $1,000 per laid-off person.

SBA's PPP loan data list no borrower named Greenhouse Software.

Layoffs

On April 17, 2020, in a post titled "Weathering the storm," Chait announced that Greenhouse would cut its team by 28 percent, about 120 employees by the count of Layoffs.fyi and Business Insider. "The virus, and resulting economic effects, are what made this necessary. And as CEO, I am ultimately responsible for this decision," he wrote. Business Insider reported that the cuts fell mostly on sales and marketing; departing employees received eight weeks of severance and eight months of extended healthcare. How Greenhouse handled layoffs →

After the first shock

In the January 13, 2021 post announcing the TPG investment, Stross said Greenhouse worked with more than 4,000 organizations handling almost 60 million job applicants a year. He said the money would pay for product development and expansion into new markets.

Where the company is now

Active private company. In a January 14, 2021 release TPG said TPG Growth and The Rise Fund had agreed to invest in Greenhouse "as a majority investor," with financial terms undisclosed and Daniel Chait remaining chief executive. The Greenhouse website was still selling the platform in 2026.

Greenhouse