MakerBot lays off 20% of staff Friday, releases fun mobile app Saturday

MakerBot confirmed the reported layoffs at the company on Friday, which VICE’s Motherboard estimated at about a fifth of its workforce. On Saturday it released a video about new mobile software that will turn handmade drawings into 3D files.

Shape Maker is a new feature on MakerBot Printshop.
The layoffs were first reported in Motherboard:

The reasoning for the layoffs, the employee told Motherboard, is that MakerBot is looking to integrate further with Stratasys, its parent company, and is streamlining its operation to further that end.
“It’s consolidating with Stratasys, so it’s economies of scale and looking at duplicate positions and consolidating,” the employee said. “We have a new CEO, so he has a different plan in mind,” she said, crying. “I’m sorry, it’s a hard day.”

Subsequently, the company released a short statement, confirming store closures and staff reductions, without going into specifics:

Today, we at MakerBot are re-organizing our business in order to focus on what matters most to our customers. As part of this, we have implemented expense reductions, downsized our staff and closed our three MakerBot retail locations.
With these changes, we will focus our efforts on improving and iterating our products, growing our 3D ecosystem, shifting our retail focus to our national partners and expanding our efforts in the professional and education markets.

The story of MakerBot’s acquisition by Stratasys was documented in the 2014 Netflix original film Print the Legend.
We previously reported that Jenny Lawton had taken over as CEO of the company when cofounder Bre Pettis opened the new Stratasys division Bold Machines.
In late February, Lawton became a Senior VP at Stratasys. An executive at the parent company, Jonathan Jaglom, took over as MakerBot CEO.