Getir lays off 100 employees in the latest sign of trouble for the rapid-delivery startup

• Getir laid off roughly 100 US corporate employees this week, Insider has learned.
• The layoffs come as Getir combines operations with Gorillas, which could lead to store closures.

Rapid grocery-delivery startup Getir has laid off about 100 corporate employees, Insider has learned.

The company made the cuts earlier this week, and they affected employees on several teams, including Getir's legal, operations, HR, fleet, and finance departments, a source familiar with the details told Insider. Before the layoffs, Getir's Slack channel for US employees contained roughly 260 corporate employees. Afterward, that number was about 160, according to the source, who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation.

More cuts could be on their way at Getir's stores as the company combines its US network with that of Gorillas, another rapid-delivery startup, and eliminates overlapping locations, the source said. Getir uses small storefronts to fill orders and deliver them to customers close by, using bikes and scooters.

In November, Getir reached a deal to acquire Gorillas, Insider reported. The acquisition closed for $1.2 billion, a steep discount to Gorillas' 2021 valuation of $3 billion. The companies haven't yet combined their teams at the corporate or store level.

Getir did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

One employee said in a LinkedIn post on Wednesday that layoffs had happened. "My time at Getir has come to an end," she wrote. "Like several of my colleagues, I was notified my position was eliminated."

The layoffs are the latest challenge for Getir, which delivers groceries and other essentials in as few as 10 minutes. The company laid off 14% of its workforce last May, the New York Post reported.

In 2022, Insider reported on the conditions that Getir employees faced filling and delivering orders at the company's US stores. Workers risked being terminated for not meeting strict time limits, such as packing orders in less than two minutes, as well as trips to the hospital after accidents riding the company's electric bikes and scooters to delivery orders.

Getir also struggled to pay store employees in full and on-time, several told Insider. That prompted an investigation from New York state's Department of Labor.

The most recent job cuts were spread across different teams at Getir, the source familiar with the layoffs said. They also swept out many high-performing employees, some of whom had helped build Getir's business since it launched in the US in late 2021.

"What a lot of people are thinking is that they're getting ready to pull out of the US market altogether," the source said. "They're trying to save money. It looks like they're getting down to a skeleton crew."

In January, Getir appointed Kristof Van Beveren as its first US general manager, Insider reported. Van Beveren previously served as Getir's UK general manager and was founder and CEO of UK grocery delivery service Weezy. Getir acquired Weezy in 2021.

Before entering the US, Getir built its businesses in densely populated European cities such as Istanbul, London, and Amsterdam. Even in those markets, Getir and its rivals have struggled to achieve profitability.

The US presented additional challenges for Getir. Customers were used to buying all their groceries at once instead of making smaller daily trips, and the company had to build its operations from the ground up instead of relying mainly on acquisitions of similar businesses as it had done in Europe, analysts and former employees told Insider in 2022.