Live news updates: Delivery start-up Gopuff to axe about 1,500 employees

US-based rapid delivery start-up Gopuff announced it was cutting the jobs of about 1,500 employees — from both its corporate and logistics staff — and closing 76 of its warehouses.

Gopuff, which offers a range of roughly 4,000 products to customers in around 30-45 minutes, is one of the largest players in the nascent ecommerce sector and was most recently valued at $15bn last July.

Until the market downtown, the company had been expanding its footprint rapidly as it sought to compete with Instacart, DoorDash and Amazon in the highly-competitive sector.

The job cuts represent about 10 per cent of its workforce and 12 per cent of its delivery network, though the company said in a letter to investors it will expand services at some of its remaining locations.

“The instant commerce industry that Gopuff created is at an inflection point,” wrote Rafael Ilishayev and Yakir Gola, the company’s co-founders and co-chief executives.

“As we prepare for what could be a much more significant macroeconomic downturn than we are experiencing currently, the smaller instant commerce players that never achieved scale are consolidating and liquidating.”

Seeking to distance itself from recent struggles seen among smaller delivery players such as Buyk and Jokr, Gopuff said it has seen 76 per cent year-on-year sales growth for “the core business”. It claimed to have Ebitda profitability in “mature” markets — locations where it has been operating for around 12-15 months.

It said one area of focus in future would be the UK, where it has experienced “impressive traction”.

In 2021, Gopuff acquired Fancy and Dija, two small British delivery start-ups.