Gorillas closes its operations in Italy and fires its employees. The German startup, which has become one of the most used home grocery delivery apps in the world in just a few months, has announced that it will focus on more profitable markets. In Italy it was present in 5 cities: Rome, Turin, Milan, Florence and Bergamo. Here he employed 540 people, of which 75 permanent contracts (including two managers) for which he initiated the procedure for collective dismissal, union sources confirm to Italian Tech.
The success of Gorillas during the pandemic
Founded in Germany in May 2020, just after the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, Gorillas was one of the most sensational cases of startups in the era of lockdowns: through an app, it allowed its customers to order and receive groceries at home in ten minutes. In just a few months, it raised $ 1.3 billion, reaching a record valuation of three billion. It has hired thousands of people in Europe and the United States. But then the reopening first, inflation and war in Ukraine then changed the picture.
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The company, after the last round of investment last October (one billion dollars), has not raised new capital. And new capital is essential for these companies if they want to continue to stand up and pay off the enormous operating costs due to the aggressive expansion phase of the market.
The crisis with reopening, inflation and the changed macroeconomic framework
Gorillas announced last May that it would be cutting its staff to cut costs. Now, the company said, it will focus on Germany, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and the United States, “in order to strengthen growth in the key markets from which most of the revenue (90%) was derived”, writes in a report. Note. Gorillas had arrived in Italy just over a year ago.
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The company makes it known that it has evaluated and is “still carefully evaluating” various alternatives such as the sale of the company or the entry of new investors. level of concreteness such as to hypothesize a good outcome “. Hence the decision to “start a gradual process of closing the business in Italy”.
The trade unions were the first to denounce the company’s plans. Gorillas, as well as other food delivery companies, have agreed to apply the national collective agreement for logistics workers to their deliverymen. “This decision has important implications for our Italian team, which has already been informed of our plans for the market, and with respect to which we have initiated the procedures required by law and collective union consultation agreements, preparatory to the dismissal of the entire workforce. “, concludes the note.
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