General Catalyst-backed startups Commure and Athelas merged in October to create a $6 billion healthcare-AI startup. At the time, the company said it planned to continue growing after the combination, including by hiring more employees.
Shortly after the deal closed, though, the newly formed Commure cut staff, according to a leaked email obtained by Business Insider.
Commure CEO Tanay Tandon, formerly the CEO of Athelas, said in the November 9 email to employees that it cut staff “determined to be redundant or whose service is otherwise no longer needed.” The company didn’t say how many people were affected.
The layoffs came just a month after Tandon told Business Insider that Commure planned to hire “aggressively” following the merger. Commure didn’t respond to requests for comment for this story.
Commure provides a common data language for health systems to simplify tasks like moving patients between different providers, while Athelas creates software for tasks like AI-powered revenue cycle management. The new company said in October it plans to stack Athelas’ software on top of Commure’s data platform for its health-system clients.
Asked by Bloomberg News in October if Commure would have to cut staff as part of the deal, Tandon suggested the company would instead seek to grow its headcount, including perhaps by hiring people affected by layoffs at numerous other healthcare companies since 2022.
“I think we’re going to be one of the biggest hirers in the next year in healthcare and software, so hopefully a home for many of the folks that did get laid off in the last year or two,” he said.
Tandon told Business Insider in October that Commure’s total headcount following the merger would be about 800. At the time, he said the company had about 100 positions open, and expected to hire hundreds more people in 2024.
He added that Commure hoped to hire more employees in its sales and engineering divisions. The company does show openings in those divisions on its websites.
A former employee affected by the layoffs, who requested anonymity to avoid retribution from the company, told Business Insider that staff were cut across the sales and engineering segments, as well as divisions like human resources, recruiting, and marketing.
Both Commure and Athelas each had at least five years of cash runway before the merger, Tandon told Business Insider in October.
He said the company expected to go public in the next two to three years.
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