View Inc. has laid off 147 workers. The company filed an official Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) notice with the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development, notifying the agency of a permanent layoff effective Oct. 3, 2024. The facility is in Mississippi, but 69 affected workers reside in Tennessee.
View produces electronically tinted windows that use artificial intelligence (AI) to control heat gain. It has weathered various legal hurdles throughout the past few years. In 2023, it settled charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for failing to disclose $28 million in projected warranty-related liabilities.
The SEC did not impose civil penalties against View because it self-reported its failure to disclose liabilities regarding a sealing component defect in its windows. The commission reported that View “promptly undertook remedial measures and cooperated with the staff’s investigation.”
Months after settling with the SEC and laying off 170 employees, View was ordered to pay nearly $5 million in fines, community service payments and civil penalties after admitting to unlawfully discharging wastewater into a publicly owned treatment works in Mississippi. The company failed to obtain a valid state permit.
In April 2024, former CEO Dr. Rao Mulpuri announced an agreement with a consortium of investors aiming to take View private, at the same time revealing plans to proceed with a process for prepackaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy. According to Bloomberg, the company is set to be taken over by senior investors in a debt swap.
Mulpuri previously attributed the company’s financial woes to a “real estate industry slowdown and massive shifts in capital markets.” Mulpuri, who had been CEO since December 2008, resigned in August 2024.
According to Mulpuri, the company’s revenue grew at a compound annual growth rate of 75% from 2020, exceeding $100 million in 2022. It also resized operations and, in the third quarter of 2023, “demonstrated unit economics, achieved positive operational gross margin and built the foundation to achieve profitability.”
It’s unclear whether the latest cutbacks are part of an ongoing resizing process or represent additional financial woes.
According to the company’s WARN filing, employees at View’s facility in Olive Branch, Mississippi, are not represented by a collective bargaining agreement and do not have bumping rights (the rights of workers with greater seniority whose jobs are eliminated to replace workers with less seniority). The Greater Memphis Local Workforce Development Board’s rapid response team has been notified to coordinate services with the company and affected employees.