Infarm lays off 500 employees

Rising energy and material costs, supply chain problems and the difficult situation on the financial markets: Infarm wants to become profitable as quickly as possible to defy the difficult economic situation.

Berlin-based Unicorn Infarm is laying off 500 employees. That is more than half of the previous workforce. In an email to the staff, founders Erez Galonska, Osnat Michaeli and Guy Galonska explained the move. The laid-off employees will receive compensation during the layoff period and severance pay.

Recently, production costs had also risen due to increased energy costs in Europe, the startup said. Rising material costs due to inflation and supply chain issues, as well as the difficult situation on the financial markets, also caused problems for the Unicorn. To continue to compete in the global market, Infarm now wants to focus on becoming profitable within the next 18 months. To this end, Infarm is closing some sites.

In the future, the company would like to focus primarily on its core markets and growing operations in Frankfurt, Copenhagen and Toronto. They also want to open a growing operation in Baltimore in the US. In the Netherlands, the UK and France, on the other hand, business activities are to be scaled down.