Getaround’s next chapter

Since this time last year, Getaround has expanded to become the world’s leading connected car sharing platform with 5 million users in 300 cities worldwide, while also achieving 6x year-over-year revenue growth. We’re proud of the teamwork, dedication, and effort it took to make this happen.

In the spirit of “navigating openly”—one of our core values—growing this fast has also pressure-tested our organization. We’ve faced our own set of challenges, leading to less efficient operations and increased costs. Frankly, we’ve learned a lot about our business during this period and the importance of balancing growth with efficiency. SoftBank has stepped up in a big way with their unique network of experts, resources, and partners to support this change.

We originally started Getaround to solve car overpopulation and empower people to carshare everywhere. That mission is now more important than ever. For long-term success, we’ve decided to return to our roots and sharpen our focus on building a delightful technology-enabled marketplace that connects people who need a car to empowered car owners.

In prioritizing the marketplace experience, we’re also making some changes to our operations. First, we’re continuing to invest in our unique product and technology. To do so, we’re reducing field operations and the size of several global teams. We’ll be prioritizing functions that maintain and increase the service level we deliver to our customers, while ensuring our systems scale gracefully with the growth of our community.

One unfortunate result of these actions is that a number of our colleagues’ jobs will be eliminated, particularly in North America where our vehicle-related operations are focused. Announcing layoffs is not the news we had hoped to share in the New Year, and it was the hardest of decisions given the talented and incredibly passionate team we’ve assembled.

I want to sincerely thank our team and apologize to any employees or customers that have been impacted. While this change is both personally difficult and humbling, I’m confident that our renewed focus is the right one for the company and our customers. We’ll continue to solve the problem of car overpopulation to positively impact billions of people, on the road toward creating a world in which all cars are shared.

Thanks for carsharing and your continued support—we look forward to the journey ahead with you.

Sam