Industry players have said they are not surprised by the news that Voi is laying off 120 people – around 12% of its workforce – to accelerate its path towards full profitability.
Approximately 120 office positions are affected, including 70 full-time roles, as well as consultant and part-time positions, and vacancies. Non-office roles in markets such as mechanics and in field-workers have been “largely unaffected by the changes”, Voi said in a statement.
“I’m not surprised that Voi is restructuring to cut central costs,” industry expert and mobility advisor Augustin Friedel told Zag Daily. “Raising additional funding stays challenging in 2024.
“R&D teams, marketing, and G&A could be reduced as the focus is on profitability instead of growth and on improving the core business instead of trying to compete with fancy technologies and side projects.”
The layoffs come just months after Tier made 140 redundancies, and even sooner after Bird filed for bankruptcy and Superpedestrian closed its US operations.
Voi CEO and Co-Founder Fredrik Hjelm said that the operator’s most valuable asset is its employees.
“It’s incredibly difficult to bid farewell to some of our highly valued colleagues who have made significant contributions to Voi and the cities we serve across Europe.
“In our and other industries, companies need to adapt to the world around them in order to control their own destiny and be self-sustainable.”
With the organisational restructuring, Voi has reduced its central overhead costs by nearly 50% since 2022.
The operator said that 2023 was the strongest year yet having grown its Group Gross Profit by 22% to a Gross Margin of 49%, and improved its Group EBITDA margin by 25 percentage points.
2023 also saw the operator secure major contracts in cities such as London, Vienna, Oslo, Milan and Marseille.
“Today, we are a leaner, more efficient company capable of leveraging the technology and operational infrastructure developed over the past years,” Fredrik said.
Tom Nutley, Head of Business Development at global micromobility software platform Urban Sharing, predicts that the industry can expect more announcements of headcount reductions in the future.
“Another micromobility company claims that the employees are their most important asset, yet makes a considerable portion of their workforce redundant even with significant margins,” he said.
“Yet, this isn’t Voi’s or any other micromobility or VC-backed company’s fault. Employees are the easiest number to inflate on a spreadsheet during a fund-raise as they are an easily quantified asset.
“In short, increased employees equals increased expenses which equals increased funding.”
Nutley anticipates that Voi will invest some of the available capital into new vehicles to push for market expansion, especially considering the recent merger between Dott and Tier.
“Is it time to explore consolidated on-street operations or even fleet management software? The former, definitely. The latter depends on if these companies consider themselves hardware companies, software companies or a consumer brand.”
