Cannabis consumer website Leafly lays off 15 employees, hires CEO

The popular marijuana consumer website Leafly has laid off 15 employees and hired a tech entrepreneur to lead the Seattle company as its new CEO.

The job reduction – unusual for the cannabis industry – cut Leafly’s workforce by about 13% and leaves the company with about 100 employees, GeekWire reported.

Leafly didn’t say which jobs were cut, but the company is advertising nine positions on its website – seven in Seattle, including three software engineers, and two in Toronto.

“As Leafly continues to evolve, we have decided to make some changes to our operations to better serve the growing market,” the company said in a statement to GeekWire. “Unfortunately, some of these changes required eliminating certain job functions.”

In another personnel move, Leafly said in a news release it has hired Chris Jeffery to succeed Drew Reynolds as CEO. It’s unclear if the Jeffery hiring and the layoffs were connected.

Jeffery is the founder of food service tech company OrderUp, which was acquired by Groupon in 2015 for $69 million, according to GeekWire.

Leafly is owned by canna-centric private equity firm Privateer Holdings, where Reynolds stepped aboard as chief operating officer in June after departing Leafly, according to GeekWire.