Seattle-based sustainable espresso maker Atomo says it’s restructuring, simply six months after elevating $40 million in recent funding.
In a press release offered to Startup, the 4-year-old firm mentioned it’s going by way of a “strategic realignment and restructuring,” however the startup declined to say whether or not it laid off staff, or present an up to date headcount quantity.
Nevertheless, present and former staff who spoke with Startup mentioned the startup lower its workforce final week. Atomo employed 35 folks in June and had grown to round 50 staff, based on LinkedIn.
In a press release attributed to co-founder and CEO Andy Kleitsch, Atomo mentioned it “not too long ago achieved a breakthrough that may assist us attain a bigger phase of shoppers and extra rapidly advance accessibility to sustainable espresso choices.”
“Our strategic realignment and restructuring will imply including new workers with specialty abilities that may allow us to extra rapidly scale our imaginative and prescient of offering sustainable espresso merchandise to the lots,” Kleitsch mentioned.
The corporate’s web site presently lists 4 open positions.
Derek Lotz, a former human assets director on the firm who left final month earlier than the restructuring, instructed Startup that Atomo has “let go of a whole lot of actually helpful staff.”
Atomo arrived on Seattle’s much-celebrated espresso scene in 2019 as a food-tech startup with a promise to reverse engineer the espresso bean. Its system has concerned eradicating the bean from the method of constructing espresso and substituting it with a molecular concoction derived from naturally sustainable, upcycled plant waste elements, together with extracts of date seed, chicory root and grape pores and skin.
The corporate’s aim is to mitigate the consequences of local weather change on espresso rising areas across the globe and supply an alternative to the environmentally damaging means of espresso farming. Atomo says its brews use 94% much less water and 93% much less carbon emissions than standard espresso.
Kleitsch is a tech veteran who beforehand labored at Amazon and has led entrepreneur workshops on the College of Washington. He co-founded Atomo with Jarret Stopforth, a Ph.D. with in depth expertise round meals security and high quality at firms resembling Chobani and Campbell Soup. Stopforth left Atomo final Might and is now co-founder and COO at Dewey Beverage, makers of a canned cocktail.
Atomo formally launched the sale of its canned chilly brew merchandise on-line in June, following its most up-to-date funding announcement.
The corporate operates two manufacturing amenities: a roastery constructing in Seattle simply six blocks from the headquarters of Starbucks, and an ingredient processing facility in California that put the startup nearer to farmers and their date pits within the Coachella Valley.
Atomo has raised $51.5 million to this point. Its final spherical was led by S2G Ventures, AgFunder and Horizons Ventures.
The modifications on the startup come as a lot of firms throughout tech have made cuts amid a slowing economic system. Amazon confirmed this month that it’s slashing 18,000 company and tech staff; Salesforce is slicing 10% of its workforce, impacting Seattle-based Tableau; Rad Energy Bikes, Meta, OfferUp, Flyhomes, Redfin and others have additionally introduced layoffs.
Earlier Atomo protection: