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RigUp / Workrise Profile: Pandemic Layoffs, Business Model, and Current Status

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PPP · EIDL · Unemployment insurance
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Company or group
Role
Other company
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PPP, EIDL, Unemployment insurance
Updated
  • Category: labor-market and HR software
  • Pandemic layoffs: about 120 employees, 25% of staff (Business Insider, April 2020)
  • Last updated: 2026-09-25

Pandemic-role map

  • Reader shorthand: an Austin marketplace for oilfield contract labor, valued at $1.9 billion, that cut a quarter of its staff in March 2020 as oil prices crashed and COVID-19 shut down the economy.
  • What RigUp did for customers: matched oil and gas companies with contract workers and service providers, and handled hiring and payroll for them.
  • What changed in the pandemic: oil prices fell to a three-decade low and home-bound Americans stopped driving; the company went from "hiring at a rapid pace across all functions" in January 2020 to layoffs two months later.
  • Relief role: none as a lender or processor. In March 2020 its blog walked contract workers through PPP, EIDL and Pandemic Unemployment Assistance.
  • Own relief: SBA's PPP loan data list no borrower named RigUp or Workrise.

Founders, Executives, and Investors

Xuan Yong and Mike Witte founded RigUp in Austin in 2014; Business Insider reported that they were college friends at Texas A&M. In 2021 Yong was co-founder and CEO and Witte co-founder and chief operating officer.

Founders Fund led a $60 million Series C in January 2019, with Quantum Energy Partners, Global Reserve Group and Bedrock Capital returning; the company said it had then raised more than $90 million. Business Insider reported that RigUp raised $415 million in 2019, including a $300 million round from Andreessen Horowitz in October, and was valued at $1.9 billion. Baillie Gifford led a $300 million Series E in May 2021, joined by Franklin Templeton and by Founders Fund, Bedrock Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Moore Strategic Ventures, 137 Ventures and Brookfield Growth Partners.

Business Before the Pandemic

RigUp pulled together databases of energy-industry contractors so that operators could hire and pay field workers faster, taking a smaller cut than some other staffing services. In January 2019 it said a prequalified oilfield contractor could often find work through its app within days, and estimated that it saved operators 25% on variable labor costs. By early 2020 it had made four acquisitions and was renovating offices in Austin.

What the Pandemic Changed

Employees told Business Insider that three blows landed at once: Saudi Arabia's price cut sent oil to a three-decade low, the coronavirus hit the gas market as home-bound Americans stopped driving, and the federal stimulus plan left out the support the oil industry had hoped for. RigUp filed SEC paperwork for a $29 million round on March 20, 2020, then days later laid off about 120 people on a conference call. "Last month, we made the very difficult decision to let go of approximately 25% of our team," the company told Business Insider in April, calling the decision "a direct result of the economic hit in oil and gas coupled with the impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak." It gave severance pay, extended health coverage and help with resumes.

Business Insider also reported that researchers at vpnMentor had found an open RigUp database holding more than 70,000 files with personal information of companies and energy workers on its platform. The researchers said RigUp did not reply for three weeks; the database was closed the day after Business Insider asked the company about it.

Business After the First Shock

Early in 2021 RigUp renamed itself Workrise to mark its move beyond oil and gas into solar, wind, commercial construction and defense work. In May 2021 it said it matched workers with more than 500 companies in over 70 U.S. metro areas, and that in 2020 it had placed more than 4,500 workers in renewable-energy jobs, nearly a third of all its placements that year. It set targets of 100,000 placements by the end of 2023 and 1 million by 2030.

Where the Company Is Now

The company has gone back to the RigUp name. A company post, "Back to the Future: Workrise is Now RigUp," says it was known as Workrise from 2021 and would be RigUp again as of Sept. 4 (the post gives no year). In June 2026 its website presented RigUp as "a full-service execution partner for energy companies," offering staffing, vendor management and project services for upstream and midstream oil and gas, and announced the acquisition of Codeco-Vanoco Engineering, a Calgary engineering and staffing firm.

Source Notes

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