Grocery delivery start-up Gorillas is cutting half its global office workforce to focus its attention on long-term profitability through five of its key markets.

The Berlin-based start-up announced today (24 May) that it has decided to ‘realign’ its global strategy and ‘sharpen its focus’ on five of its most profitable markets: Germany, France, UK, Netherlands and the US.

This means that Gorilla is considering its options in four of its other markets – Italy, Spain, Denmark and Belgium – with the potential to pull out. However, it confirmed to The Verge that nothing has been decided yet.

Gorillas was founded in Berlin in 2020 by Kağan Sümer and Jörg Kattner, promising grocery deliveries in as little as 10 minutes.

It raised nearly $1bn in a Series C funding round last October, just a few months after hitting unicorn status in a $290m Series B funding in March 2021.

Despite the positive trajectory, Gorillas said in its latest announcement that it is working in a “challenging and complex global environment”, prompting it to shift its focus from hyper growth to long-term profitability.

Around 90pc of Gorillas’ revenue comes from the five key countries, which have “entered a clear path to profitability”.

“For this reason, we have decided to sharpen our focus and continue to grow these five markets, where we see huge potential in the near future,” the company wrote in a statement on its website.

“In Italy, Spain, Denmark and Belgium, very attractive markets in their own rights, we are looking at all possible strategic options for the Gorillas brand.”

News of this employee downsizing comes just two weeks after Gorillas celebrated 16m orders worldwide. Since 2020, it has expanded to more than 60 cities in 9 countries, including Amsterdam, London, Paris, Madrid, New York and Munich, and built more than 230 warehouses.

“While this was an extremely hard decision to make, these are necessary moves that will help Gorillas to become a stronger and more profitable business with a sharpened focus on its customers and its brand,” the company wrote.

Gorillas is the second European unicorn to cut its workforce this week. Klarna, the Swedish ‘buy now, pay later’ fintech, announced plans to lay off 10pc of its workforce in response to financial turbulence cause by increased inflation, a volatile stock market and the war in Ukraine.

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