Ensemble Communications Inc., a San Diego telecommunications equipment maker, laid off 15 percent of its 260-member staff April 25, an executive said.
Rami Hadar, a co-founder and executive vice president of the privately held company, blamed the move in part on the health of small, independent telecommunications carriers (known in telecom circles as competitive local exchange carriers, or CLECs).
“Given the near-term health of the U.S. CLEC market, we needed to make more conservative sales projections for the rest of the year,” Hadar said in a prepared statement. “This, coupled with our concerns about the IPO markets, which we expect to open up again, has led us to closely watch our budget.”
Other equipment manufacturers like Cisco, Nortel and Lucent have also announced layoffs, Hadar said last week.
Ensemble closed a $60 million round of financing in August. Investors include Cisco, Dell Ventures, the Goldman Sachs Group and others. One local investor is Enterprise Partners.
Ensemble still has a good deal of its venture capital on hand, Hadar said, adding the investors have indicated they would fund Ensemble again if necessary, and that the company expects another funding round later this year.
Ensemble makes fixed wireless telecommunications equipment.
“Ensemble continues to experience strong demand for our next-generation broadband access products, and these work force reductions do not impact our ability to supply and support current and new customers in both North America and worldwide,” Hadar said in the prepared statement.
