Through the magic of YouTube’s recommendation algorithm, it gave a flyer and suggested the above video to me. It’s a quick recap of the vast majority of the Komoot team throwing one last party, after being told they don’t have jobs. As you may remember from about two months ago, Komoot was sold to Bending Spoons, an Italian investment company. Both my discussions with people familiar with the deal, and others elsewhere, have put the sale price at about €300m.
As is the case with virtually all Bending Spoons acquisitions, they promptly fire almost all (if not all) the staff within a few weeks. That happened here as well, with roughly 85% of the staff being let go within the first two weeks, upwards of about 150 people. Generally speaking, the operation profile of Bending Spoons post-acquisition is to raise prices with minimal feature updates, focusing more on the long-term gravy train.
In any case, the above three-minute film is a short look at what seems like one last weekend get-together from the team. Komoot had previously done large all-company events out into the wilderness. While the company was based in Germany, many of their employees were spread out across Europe. That’s because the company had previously preferred employees to be closer to outdoors/hiking/etc, allowing them to better understand their products and customer base. From the photo above, it looks like approximately 100 people were at the event.
What comes of Komoot as a platform going forward remains pretty unclear. Though what’s clear is that when you fire 85% of the employees, it’s highly unlikely you’re going to see substantial new features going forward. Of course, that doesn’t take away from what Komoot as a platform is today, which is still a fantastic resource for finding trails/routes (especially in Europe). But again, what manifests in the future in terms of updates is very very unclear.
Hopefully, all those employees who lost their jobs can find work they enjoy, either inside or outside the sports tech industry.
Thanks for reading!
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