Kaseya, the Miami-based software company that got taxpayer incentives for new jobs and whose name is on the Heat’s downtown arena, fired at least 150 employees this week.
The firm on Tuesday jettisoned the Miami workers from its account management or sales team, Xavier Gonzalez, chief communications officer, said in an interview.
The company says the arena naming rights won’t be affected.
“They were performance-based terminations,” he said. The dismissals make up about 8% of the company’s 2,000 employees in Miami. Globally, Kaseya has over 5,000 employees.
Kaseya, which makes software that helps businesses manage IT and security, also fired workers in other locations, although it did not provide an exact number. Miami appears to be the hardest hit.
What will happen next at Kaseya?
Gonzalez promised that the vacant positions will soon be filled by new candidates. He said “they were not layoffs” but rather part of a general business practice that the company uses to regularly review employees’ performance. A second person, not employed by Kaseya but who was briefed this week on its plans, confirmed that.
Gonzalez drew an analogy to how Jack Welch used to run General Electric, and said this isn’t the first time Kaseya made such terminations. But he declined to specify how many employees have been sacked since it moved to Miami around 2015.
“The company continues to grow in all areas,” Gonzalez said. “We continue to hire.”
Kaseya’s website lists several dozen openings.
The job losses were first reported by the South Florida Business Journal on Wednesday. The report quickly circulated on social media and even alarmed some basketball fans.
Names on Miami Heat arena
The arena where the Heat plays has had a rough recent history with names, having three different ones just since 2023. Before Kaseya, the arena was named for FTX from 2021 to 2023 — until that company imploded and declared bankruptcy in a spectacular crypto crash.
So, is this the beginning of troubles at Kaseya? Or is it just routine business?
The company says the latter. Kaseya was profitable in 2023 and generated about $1.5 billion in revenue, Gonzalez said. The private firm declined to provide other financial details.
“There is no risk with the arena,” Gonzalez said. “We’ve made every payment. And will continue.”
A person familiar with the deal who doesn’t work for Kaseya also says there are no issues with arena payments.
In April 2023, the company agreed to pay $117 million for naming rights.
Hiring incentives in Miami-Dade
Kaseya struck an agreement with Miami-Dade County to receive fiscal incentives for job creation, one it signed in February 2023. That includes $4.25 million from the Relocation and Expansion Incentives Program, known as REIP, and $313,150 from the Targeted Jobs Incentives Fund, or TJIF.
Yet, according to three sources, the county has yet to pay Kaseya.
“As of today, we have not been paid anything by the county,” Gonzalez said. “We still need to submit our numbers, show we paid taxes.” The company is in the first year of a three-year plan, he said.
“The county has not made any payouts to Kaseya on the TJIF or REIP incentives approved” by the County Commission last year, said Natalia Jaramillo, communications director for the Office of Mayor Daniella Levine Cava. She said the money is paid out in installments and only after annual reviews of whether the company’s job and investment commitments were “made and retained.”
This also means that different from FTX, if Kaseya were to face financial problems over the long term, the county could get some indication in advance, like through hiring numbers.
Gonzalez, the Kaseya executive, insists there is nothing to worry about whether Kaseya can fulfill its commitments to the county. Since February 2023, the company has grown in Miami from 800 employees to about 2,000, even including the latest terminations.
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