US-based autonomous delivery robot startup Only has announced that it will lay off 30% of its workforce, or about 340 employees, as part of a restructuring intended to expand its capital runway.
Most recently, Neuro co-founder Dave Ferguson And jiajun zhu A blog post said the company would cut staff and shift resources away from commercial operations to research and development. This is the second time in less than a year that Nuro, which has raised $2.13 billion, has laid off staff to cut costs. In November 2022, Nuro laid off approximately 300 people, or 20% of its workforce. Here’s the open letter from the co-founders of Neuro announcing the job cuts
Today we’re sharing how we want to chart a more capital efficient path to realizing Neuro’s mission.
At Nuro, our mission is to improve everyday life through robotics. Our first product – autonomous local goods delivery – aims to improve the lives of millions of people, strengthening communities and the environment in the process. This has been our goal since day one, and we are firmly committed to it.
Over the past seven years, we have made significant progress towards this goal. We built a custom fleet of zero-occupant vehicles, developed state-of-the-art AI to operate these vehicles driverlessly on public roads, and signed on nationally recognized brands as commercial partners. Each of these achievements is an important step in building a scaled, autonomous delivery service.
For most of Neuro’s existence, we have operated in a friendly fundraising environment and have been fortunate to attract significant funding from top investors. But over the past year and a half, capital markets in general and deep tech funding in particular have shrunk significantly. Recent bank failures and talk about an impending US recession signal that change isn’t coming back anytime soon. We have entered a new capital environment that will shape the next few years or so. In this new reality, we need to be more efficient with our balance sheet.
There is a fundamental tension in the development of self driving between capital efficiency and speed to build out the initial service. We have historically invested heavily in implementing commercial services and have learned a lot from our customers. But commercial deployment comes at a significant cost, both in terms of resources and autonomy focus. And until the unit economics of these services make sense, we think it’s wise to focus on what we as startups can do efficiently.
Going forward, we will change our approach to building a neuro business. Whereas in the past we developed autonomy systems, designed and built custom vehicles, and deployed commercial pilots with partners in parallel, we will now follow a more sequential development model.
At the heart of this new approach is our strong focus on autonomy. Recent advances in AI have increased our confidence and ability to reach truly normalized and rapid autonomy. We’ve invested in AI and ML since day one, and a big part of our autonomy stack is learning directly from data. Our focus will now be on making our autonomy even more data driven, allowing us to scale to larger operational areas even faster.
In addition, we will delay the previously planned production line of our third generation vehicle, reduce the scale of our commercial pilots in the near term and explore more efficient deployment models with partners. This focus on accelerating our service autonomy progress and incremental development will provide a leaner model for AV development, and double our runway from approximately 1.5 years to approximately 3.5 years.
Unfortunately, implementing this new roadmap means we make difficult choices about where to focus our efforts and whether to reduce or stop spending. Last month, we offered voluntary separation packages to some employees, and we will implement a planned reduction in force later this week. This change weighs heavily on us. We are deeply inspired by the dedication and passion of our associates and every step we take next will be in gratitude for the hard work and contributions of the associates who are leaving us.
We firmly believe a future where autonomous vehicles improve daily life is both exciting and inevitable. With our fresh approach, Neuro will not only weather this economic downturn, but we hope to emerge on the other side stronger. Our mission to improve everyday life through robotics and our product vision to create a local autonomous delivery service remain intact, and our dedication and resolve to achieve them is stronger than ever.
Most recently, Neuro co-founder Dave Ferguson And jiajun zhu A blog post said the company would cut staff and shift resources away from commercial operations to research and development. This is the second time in less than a year that Nuro, which has raised $2.13 billion, has laid off staff to cut costs. In November 2022, Nuro laid off approximately 300 people, or 20% of its workforce. Here’s the open letter from the co-founders of Neuro announcing the job cuts
Today we’re sharing how we want to chart a more capital efficient path to realizing Neuro’s mission.
At Nuro, our mission is to improve everyday life through robotics. Our first product – autonomous local goods delivery – aims to improve the lives of millions of people, strengthening communities and the environment in the process. This has been our goal since day one, and we are firmly committed to it.
Over the past seven years, we have made significant progress towards this goal. We built a custom fleet of zero-occupant vehicles, developed state-of-the-art AI to operate these vehicles driverlessly on public roads, and signed on nationally recognized brands as commercial partners. Each of these achievements is an important step in building a scaled, autonomous delivery service.
For most of Neuro’s existence, we have operated in a friendly fundraising environment and have been fortunate to attract significant funding from top investors. But over the past year and a half, capital markets in general and deep tech funding in particular have shrunk significantly. Recent bank failures and talk about an impending US recession signal that change isn’t coming back anytime soon. We have entered a new capital environment that will shape the next few years or so. In this new reality, we need to be more efficient with our balance sheet.
There is a fundamental tension in the development of self driving between capital efficiency and speed to build out the initial service. We have historically invested heavily in implementing commercial services and have learned a lot from our customers. But commercial deployment comes at a significant cost, both in terms of resources and autonomy focus. And until the unit economics of these services make sense, we think it’s wise to focus on what we as startups can do efficiently.
Going forward, we will change our approach to building a neuro business. Whereas in the past we developed autonomy systems, designed and built custom vehicles, and deployed commercial pilots with partners in parallel, we will now follow a more sequential development model.
At the heart of this new approach is our strong focus on autonomy. Recent advances in AI have increased our confidence and ability to reach truly normalized and rapid autonomy. We’ve invested in AI and ML since day one, and a big part of our autonomy stack is learning directly from data. Our focus will now be on making our autonomy even more data driven, allowing us to scale to larger operational areas even faster.
In addition, we will delay the previously planned production line of our third generation vehicle, reduce the scale of our commercial pilots in the near term and explore more efficient deployment models with partners. This focus on accelerating our service autonomy progress and incremental development will provide a leaner model for AV development, and double our runway from approximately 1.5 years to approximately 3.5 years.
Unfortunately, implementing this new roadmap means we make difficult choices about where to focus our efforts and whether to reduce or stop spending. Last month, we offered voluntary separation packages to some employees, and we will implement a planned reduction in force later this week. This change weighs heavily on us. We are deeply inspired by the dedication and passion of our associates and every step we take next will be in gratitude for the hard work and contributions of the associates who are leaving us.
We firmly believe a future where autonomous vehicles improve daily life is both exciting and inevitable. With our fresh approach, Neuro will not only weather this economic downturn, but we hope to emerge on the other side stronger. Our mission to improve everyday life through robotics and our product vision to create a local autonomous delivery service remain intact, and our dedication and resolve to achieve them is stronger than ever.