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Nuro’s third technology, electrical autonomous automobile with no steering wheel. | Supply: Nuro
Nuro, an autonomous automobile supply firm with deployments in California and Texas, laid off about 300 workers, or 20% of its employees, on Friday, in response to reporting from Tech Crunch.
The corporate’s co-founders, Jiajun Zhu and Dave Ferguson, despatched an e-mail to workers Friday morning informing them of the layoffs and saying they’d obtain one other replace informing them if they’d be impacted.
Ferguson and Zhu informed workers that the layoffs have been the corporate’s try at preserving money amid a usually poor financial outlook. The founders took duty for the layoffs, stating the corporate overhired in 2021.
2021 was an enormous yr for the corporate. In November, it introduced in a $600 million funding led by Tiger World Administration, placing the corporate at an $8.6 billion valuation. The spherical additionally included participation from Alphabet, Google’s father or mother firm, and the father or mother firm of Waymo, one other autonomous automobile firm. After the funding, Nuro doubled its crew in lower than two years.
Nuro had gained numerous traction in 2020 when it turned the primary U.S. autonomous automobile developer to be given exemptions by the U.S. Nationwide Freeway Visitors Security Administration (NHTSA) for testing on public roads with no need controls for human operators. Later that yr, Nuro obtained a second allow to check the R2 on sure public roads in sections of 9 cities inside Santa Clara and San Mateo counties.
Since then, Nuro has labored with Domino’s, Walmart, FedEx, 7-Eleven, Kroger and Uber for numerous supply actions. However the firm hasn’t been with out its challenges. Earlier this yr, it introduced it was laying off a handful of workers in Texas, California, and Arizona, and began winding down its Phoenix Depot operations.
In its newest spherical of layoffs, Nuro is providing the affected workers 12 weeks of severance pay, and as much as 14 weeks of severance pay for individuals who have been at Nuro for over two years. The corporate may even pay out bonuses to eligible workers, waiving the one-year vesting cliff on the fairness entrance.
Nuro will subsidize 100% of COBRA healthcare premiums, together with for households, by way of March 31, 2023, for laid-off workers. The corporate can also be offering profession transition help, and giving its Visa holders a discover interval to assist ease the transition.
