Zoe, one of Europe’s best-funded direct-to-consumer healthtechs, is making its second round of layoffs in six months as it restructures its teams, the company has confirmed to Sifted.
This latest round of layoffs, first reported by the Sun newspaper, will largely affect employees in the startup’s marketing team and its nutrition coaching team — which offers advice to users via the app, one source tells Sifted.
50% of the marketing team and 80% of the nutrition coaching team are facing layoffs, they say.
Zoe confirmed to Sifted that it was “restructuring” its teams, but declined to comment on how many employees would be impacted by layoffs. It added that "information shared at this point is not fully accurate, as it is an ongoing and live process".
In April, the company told Sifted it was planning to “reduce the size of its organisation” as it looked to cut costs by 20% after the company “overexpanded”, founder and CEO Jonathan Wolf said at the time.
Zoe is currently undergoing a redundancy consultation process, which is required by law for companies laying off 20 or more people.
The news comes just months after the company, which provides microbiome testing and diet advice app, announced a $15m raise to take the startup’s total funding to $118m as it looked to expand in the US.
Customer churn
Zoe has become a household name in recent years due to the rising fame of its cofounder, scientist Tim Spector, and its hugely popular podcast. It was also the UK’s fastest-growing healthtech by headcount in 2023.
It sells microbiome testing kits for £299 and a monthly subscription to the app for between £25 and £35 a month (depending on how long a user subscribes). Users get personalised scores on thousands of foods and access to recipes, diet and lifestyle advice. Zoe has also launched a range of supplements in the past year.
More than 100k people have paid for the service so far, the company told Sifted in July.
But customer churn has been a problem. In an interview with Sifted last October, Spector said that “half” of users only subscribe to Zoe for six to nine months before leaving — and the company was focusing on how to “keep people for years”.
While Wolf didn’t want to comment on those figures when speaking to Sifted in July, he said that the majority of “new” members since that October interview have purchased annual membership.
But a worse sales performance than expected in the early months of 2024 forced the company into layoffs in April, Wolf added.
Just three months later Zoe announced a raise as it looked to tap into the US market — which Wolf called the company’s “biggest opportunity”.
A Zoe spokesperson told Sifted that the company was “committed to making changes to our organisation as needed”, when asked about the most recent round of layoffs.
