RoadRunner Recycling, a Pittsburgh-based waste and recycling technology company, recently laid off an estimated 50 employees.
Multiple former employees reported the news on LinkedIn late last week. The company confirmed the move on Monday.
“On March 1, we took a difficult but necessary step in reducing our workforce by roughly 10%. While this decision did not come lightly, the current economic climate has led us to explore a variety of ways to streamline operations, and this reduction is, unfortunately, unavoidable as we adjust our strategies to continue providing world-class services to our customers,” said CEO Graham Rihn in a statement.
RoadRunner, which was founded in 2014, provides third-party collection services to ESG-focused customers throughout the U.S. Last year, the company expanded to eight new markets and opened a second office in Phoenix.
Its recent expansion was funded by a $70 million series D round from BeyondNetZero in January 2022 and a $20 million series D extension from Fifth Wall in November.
The company’s most recent funding announcement noted how RoadRunner had seen substantial growth and doubled its headcount to nearly 600 employees within a year, despite operating in “a market that has proved to be difficult for growth.” RoadRunner also acquired Compology, a California-based waste metering technology company, in October.
RoadRunner declined to share which aspects of its business have been most affected by economic conditions, instead saying that the company was built to grow quickly, and “with the current economic environment, we are tempering our team’s rate of growth to better solve for efficiency in an uncertain environment.”
According to LinkedIn posts, affected employees worked in areas such as sales, talent acquisition and marketing. RoadRunner confirmed the layoffs included some former Compology employees, “depending on their department and role,” because the acquisition had already been fully integrated.
“Our culture has always focused on caring personally for one another, and as such, we intend to fully support those impacted by providing severance packages, including medical continuation, and outplacement services as they navigate this transition,” said Rihn.
Layoffs have become common in recent months in other sectors, though not in the waste and recycling industry. Rubicon, a competing third-party service provider, reduced its workforce by 11% in November.
