Struggling speedy grocery delivery startup Getir has announced that it will be letting go of around 2,500 employees. The company currently employs around 23k people, including couriers, store workers and office employees, across five locations.
Getir is Europe’s best-capitalised speedy grocery startup, having raised $1.8bn from investors including Tiger Global, Sequoia and Mubadala. It’s the oldest of a cohort of delivery companies which raised significant chunks of funding in 2021 and then began to struggle last year.
The company first laid off staff in May 2022, reducing its headcount by 14%. In the last few months, it has withdrawn from several markets. It left Spain and France in June — which also resulted in layoffs — and by the end of July had exited Italy and Portugal.
The cuts come just over a month after the company asked office staff to help shut down its UK warehouses in a scramble to cut costs, after employees told Sifted that it was struggling to pay its suppliers.
Getir will continue to operate in Turkey, the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and the US.
Another grocery delivery startup, UK-based Oja, on Monday announced that it has ceased operations. The company, which delivered African and Caribbean groceries to UK customers, had raised $3.4m from investors including LocalGlobe and TinyVC.
