Last week, Europe's largest speedy grocery company Getir axed 100 employees in its US headquarters. And now, further layoffs are expected in its UK office, say two senior Getir employees.
The impending staff cuts come as Getir merges with Gorillas, the rival grocery startup it scooped up at the end of last year in a much-anticipated deal. The merger valued the combined entity at $10bn, lower than Getir’s nearly $12bn valuation at its $768m Series E raise earlier on in 2022.
The number of people laid off in the UK office will not be at the scale seen in 2022, one person said, when Getir laid off 14% (4,400 people) of its global workforce.
The UK is one of Getir’s largest markets outside of Turkey.
Senior Gorillas employees have already started in new roles within Getir. Christopher Chaaya has been named new UK general manager at Getir, the same role he held at Gorillas.
But ecosystem watchers say the combined entity will naturally need to cut some overlapping roles, given the companies offered the same service and operated in many similar locations, and if they want to show investors that the deal was a lucrative move.
The layoffs in 2022 were ostensibly to cut costs as the market turned, in what was a brutal year for the wider speedy grocery sector.
Getir declined to comment.
