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List of Tech company layoffs in Europe

86 points by firstSpeaker 4y ago

rcarmo 4y ago
That is a very short list. I don't think this is really news, especially since they are fairly spread out in time and some were... predictable given the markets those companies were in. On another topic, every time I visit sifted (I keep tabs on startup valuations and investments in Europe), their inconsistent use of "\" and "/" in headlines triggers my OCD...
- dan1234 4y ago
  Yes, and it's dwarfed by the list of companies currently hiring (on the same site)! https://sifted.eu/articles/revolut-back-market-startup-hiring-downturn/ https://sifted.eu/articles/revolut-back-market-startup-hirin...
- JimBlackwood 4y ago
  Yeah, it feels a bit like: - New market is discovered - 10’s of companies enter simultaneously - Only some survive For the convenience grocery delivery in our city we have: - Gorillaz - FLINK - Getir They all suddenly show up at the same time with giant makreting campaigns and now there’ll be regulations dictating where they can and can’t have their stores. It’s no surprise that at least some of these companies won’t make it. Especially since the regular grocery delivery business is also expanding (Picnic, Pieter Pot, Albert Heijn, Jumbo, Plus).
Majestic121 4y ago
For the consumer part, the 3 companies doing layoffs are "speedy grocery delivery startup". Those were advertising very hard recently, insisting a lot on speed of delivery. I was wondering how those were working as it seems to me speed is not really a factor for groceries, as it can be for direct food deliveries. Apparently it's not working that well.
- JimBlackwood 4y ago
  They are hugely popular in my city (and others in dense populated cities/cities with high student populations). I think a major reason is thought: - They’re all entering the same market at the same time doing huge marketing campaigns. I can’t imagine this will lead to any profits. With food deliveries being extremely competitive and regular grocery prices also being extremely competitive, it must be hard to make money. Especially with so many competitors from the start. - Increasing regulations, they’re no longer allowed to open in city centres and being forced to locate in business parks/outside areas. This ruins their whole “delivered in 5 min!!!” promise and makes it take longer than walking to a grocery store with cheaper prices.
jonatron 4y ago
The fast grocery delivery business was waiting on a crash. It doesn't make sense that there's Getir, gorillas, gopuff, zapp and beelivery. Plus deliveroo, Uber eats, and Amazon prime now. Probably more that I haven't heard of. All for inefficient delivery of small quantities of low value items. I have a supermarket a 5 minute walk away, I just don't get it.
- ageitgey 4y ago
  Every cohort of new startup founders reinvents Webvan when VC money is plentiful.
  - danrocks 4y ago
    I feel there's a theorem here waiting to be formalized.
  - thewarrior 4y ago
    Wow this is such a great line. I hope it becomes famous and you get credit for it :D
- LightG 4y ago
  Same. Absolutely bonkers but a few people on my street do use it so ... Honourable positive mention for Getir though. In our area, they were the first/only(?) one who invested in electric mopeds so we don't hear the incessant noise of mopeds going back and forth down our road. Hopefully this becomes the norm.
- housingisaright 4y ago
  Are these grocery-delivery services popular in the states / somwehere else? Never understood the market for them in the EU. Either you live in a city, have - at worst - 10-15 min to walk to a store, or you live outside a city where it is 10-15 min with a car to a store and the service is not available. They will die as soon as they stop subsidize the cost with VC money.
  - nivenkos 4y ago
sph 4y ago
Crappy article, with no mention of which country each of this company is based. I've done the research for them: * Nuri: Germany * Klarna: Sweden * Getir: Turkey * Gorillas: Germany * Zapp: Germany (unsure) * Kry: Sweden * Hopin: United Kingdom FWIW, I've never heard of any of them. Sounds like they're all startups. 'Tis not a great time for startups, but I wouldn't cry for "the tech company layoffs have hit Europe" just yet. The whole startup market has been extremely overvalued for a while, a little downturn is not necessarily cause for panic, in fact might be healthy.
- OJFord 4y ago
  Fwiw, I've heard of (not used, heard of) at least two of those in the UK - and not the one you say is UK-based.
- thematrixturtle 4y ago
  Klarna is quite large, and I'm a bit surprised to see them on the list since I thought they were doing quite well and there's real economies of scale in their business (digital payments & financing). As for the rest, meh.
  - nivenkos 4y ago
    They had massive losses recently, I guess rising interest rates makes tough times even for loan sharks.
  - gtirloni 4y ago
    I think meh sums up this article pretty well.
  - weatherlite 4y ago
    Letting go of 10% of staff is bad but pretty common, it doesn't mean the company is going bankrupt.
  - subpixel 4y ago
    Their USP is interest-free loans, I’ve used them for very large purchases for sheer convenience. But as soon as the loan is not interest free any sane customer will just use their credit card and avoid the adjustable rate trap. The customers who don’t have a credit card represent a whole different line of business and a shitty one in a bear market.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
redwood 4y ago
Interesting that the slowdown seems to be hitting Europe first
- mantas 4y ago
  Europe was riding on cheap money with little actual innovation. Along with stricter and stricter regulations that makes it even harder to do something productive. It feels like we were just printing money whole decade. Ukraine war is probably hitting Europe much harder than US or far east.
  - nivenkos 4y ago
    I don't agree with your first point (how would you even quantify that?) But the second point is absolutely true. The cost of living crisis in Europe is far more acute due to the effect on natural gas prices and some other items (cooking oil, etc.). The increase in interest rates has also been much greater. That leads to consumers cutting discretionary spending at a much faster rate, killing off loads of "nice-to-have" startups dependent on that like grocery delivery, cheap credit, etc. And as the Americans say - "we ain't seen nothing yet"
    - mantas 4y ago
      I see very few european innovations/businesses that are actually making a change in the long run. Okay, we got new loan sharks, new rental services, etc.. Basically existing stuff just using new technologies to grow ever bigger and become monopolies. Selling investors the idea that if they drop €€€€, maaaaybe they can corner the market in the future. US got Tesla. Yet who is threatening Euro too-big-to-fail car manufacturing behemoths? Yet manufacturing is still moving away to Asia and energy issues are ever present with many anti-nuclear advocates with questionable funding. And instead of fixing actual societal issues some twats want to play Euro Empire Building out of EU. But same twats can't even defend an ally in a bloody war.
    - sokoloff 4y ago
      Cooking oil is a meaningful part of the cost of living crisis? I’d wager that cooking oil could 10x (and maybe 100x) in price and I’d never notice it in my budget.
kakoni 4y ago
According to linkedin, Klarna seems to have >100 people titled ”talent acquisition coordinator”.
yitchelle 4y ago
Hmm. Is sifted.eu trying to stir up something here? It is only a small number companies out of thousands of companies. Now if the companies were Addidas, BMW, or Aldi, then we should start to get worried.
- randomsearch 4y ago
  Just preparing I guess. If you’re a startup and you start worrying by the time BMW is laying people off, you’ve started worrying too late to do anything about it. The time to act is now. That’s the point.

86 points by firstSpeaker 4y ago

That is a very short list. I don't think this is really news, especially since they are fairly spread out in time and some were... predictable given the markets those companies were in. On another topic, every time I visit sifted (I keep tabs on startup valuations and investments in Europe), their inconsistent use of "\" and "/" in headlines triggers my OCD...

dan1234 4y ago
Yes, and it's dwarfed by the list of companies currently hiring (on the same site)! https://sifted.eu/articles/revolut-back-market-startup-hiring-downturn/ https://sifted.eu/articles/revolut-back-market-startup-hirin...
JimBlackwood 4y ago
Yeah, it feels a bit like: - New market is discovered - 10’s of companies enter simultaneously - Only some survive For the convenience grocery delivery in our city we have: - Gorillaz - FLINK - Getir They all suddenly show up at the same time with giant makreting campaigns and now there’ll be regulations dictating where they can and can’t have their stores. It’s no surprise that at least some of these companies won’t make it. Especially since the regular grocery delivery business is also expanding (Picnic, Pieter Pot, Albert Heijn, Jumbo, Plus).

Majestic121 4y ago

For the consumer part, the 3 companies doing layoffs are "speedy grocery delivery startup". Those were advertising very hard recently, insisting a lot on speed of delivery. I was wondering how those were working as it seems to me speed is not really a factor for groceries, as it can be for direct food deliveries. Apparently it's not working that well.

JimBlackwood 4y ago
They are hugely popular in my city (and others in dense populated cities/cities with high student populations). I think a major reason is thought: - They’re all entering the same market at the same time doing huge marketing campaigns. I can’t imagine this will lead to any profits. With food deliveries being extremely competitive and regular grocery prices also being extremely competitive, it must be hard to make money. Especially with so many competitors from the start. - Increasing regulations, they’re no longer allowed to open in city centres and being forced to locate in business parks/outside areas. This ruins their whole “delivered in 5 min!!!” promise and makes it take longer than walking to a grocery store with cheaper prices.

jonatron 4y ago

The fast grocery delivery business was waiting on a crash. It doesn't make sense that there's Getir, gorillas, gopuff, zapp and beelivery. Plus deliveroo, Uber eats, and Amazon prime now. Probably more that I haven't heard of. All for inefficient delivery of small quantities of low value items. I have a supermarket a 5 minute walk away, I just don't get it.

ageitgey 4y ago
Every cohort of new startup founders reinvents Webvan when VC money is plentiful.
- danrocks 4y ago
  I feel there's a theorem here waiting to be formalized.
- thewarrior 4y ago
  Wow this is such a great line. I hope it becomes famous and you get credit for it :D
LightG 4y ago
Same. Absolutely bonkers but a few people on my street do use it so ... Honourable positive mention for Getir though. In our area, they were the first/only(?) one who invested in electric mopeds so we don't hear the incessant noise of mopeds going back and forth down our road. Hopefully this becomes the norm.
housingisaright 4y ago
Are these grocery-delivery services popular in the states / somwehere else? Never understood the market for them in the EU. Either you live in a city, have - at worst - 10-15 min to walk to a store, or you live outside a city where it is 10-15 min with a car to a store and the service is not available. They will die as soon as they stop subsidize the cost with VC money.
- nivenkos 4y ago

sph 4y ago

Crappy article, with no mention of which country each of this company is based. I've done the research for them: * Nuri: Germany * Klarna: Sweden * Getir: Turkey * Gorillas: Germany * Zapp: Germany (unsure) * Kry: Sweden * Hopin: United Kingdom FWIW, I've never heard of any of them. Sounds like they're all startups. 'Tis not a great time for startups, but I wouldn't cry for "the tech company layoffs have hit Europe" just yet. The whole startup market has been extremely overvalued for a while, a little downturn is not necessarily cause for panic, in fact might be healthy.

OJFord 4y ago
Fwiw, I've heard of (not used, heard of) at least two of those in the UK - and not the one you say is UK-based.
thematrixturtle 4y ago
Klarna is quite large, and I'm a bit surprised to see them on the list since I thought they were doing quite well and there's real economies of scale in their business (digital payments & financing). As for the rest, meh.
- nivenkos 4y ago
  They had massive losses recently, I guess rising interest rates makes tough times even for loan sharks.
- gtirloni 4y ago
  I think meh sums up this article pretty well.
- weatherlite 4y ago
  Letting go of 10% of staff is bad but pretty common, it doesn't mean the company is going bankrupt.
- subpixel 4y ago
  Their USP is interest-free loans, I’ve used them for very large purchases for sheer convenience. But as soon as the loan is not interest free any sane customer will just use their credit card and avoid the adjustable rate trap. The customers who don’t have a credit card represent a whole different line of business and a shitty one in a bear market.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

redwood 4y ago

Interesting that the slowdown seems to be hitting Europe first

mantas 4y ago
Europe was riding on cheap money with little actual innovation. Along with stricter and stricter regulations that makes it even harder to do something productive. It feels like we were just printing money whole decade. Ukraine war is probably hitting Europe much harder than US or far east.
- nivenkos 4y ago
  I don't agree with your first point (how would you even quantify that?) But the second point is absolutely true. The cost of living crisis in Europe is far more acute due to the effect on natural gas prices and some other items (cooking oil, etc.). The increase in interest rates has also been much greater. That leads to consumers cutting discretionary spending at a much faster rate, killing off loads of "nice-to-have" startups dependent on that like grocery delivery, cheap credit, etc. And as the Americans say - "we ain't seen nothing yet"
  - mantas 4y ago
    I see very few european innovations/businesses that are actually making a change in the long run. Okay, we got new loan sharks, new rental services, etc.. Basically existing stuff just using new technologies to grow ever bigger and become monopolies. Selling investors the idea that if they drop €€€€, maaaaybe they can corner the market in the future. US got Tesla. Yet who is threatening Euro too-big-to-fail car manufacturing behemoths? Yet manufacturing is still moving away to Asia and energy issues are ever present with many anti-nuclear advocates with questionable funding. And instead of fixing actual societal issues some twats want to play Euro Empire Building out of EU. But same twats can't even defend an ally in a bloody war.
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    Cooking oil is a meaningful part of the cost of living crisis? I’d wager that cooking oil could 10x (and maybe 100x) in price and I’d never notice it in my budget.

kakoni 4y ago

According to linkedin, Klarna seems to have >100 people titled ”talent acquisition coordinator”.

yitchelle 4y ago

Hmm. Is sifted.eu trying to stir up something here? It is only a small number companies out of thousands of companies. Now if the companies were Addidas, BMW, or Aldi, then we should start to get worried.

randomsearch 4y ago
Just preparing I guess. If you’re a startup and you start worrying by the time BMW is laying people off, you’ve started worrying too late to do anything about it. The time to act is now. That’s the point.