Gloucester coffee startup Cometeer hits bitter stretch, cuts staff

Gloucester coffee startup Cometeer hits bitter stretch, cuts staff

Cometeer, a closely funded coffee startup primarily based in Gloucester, has gone via a spherical of layoffs because it adjusts to market situations.

The firm, which was based in 2015, sells flash-frozen pods of high-end coffee and has raised about $100 million of enterprise capital. But over the previous yr, with the slowing financial system, Cometeer has seen its order progress gradual, in keeping with experiences in Forbes and Nosh. About half of the corporate’s 160 staff have departed since June via layoffs and attrition, the experiences mentioned.

Cometeer wouldn’t touch upon the main points of the layoffs however mentioned it’s now on a sustainable footing.

“Like many different firms, we needed to modify post-COVID staffing ranges to match market situations, and now, in true start-up vogue, we’re dedicated to doing extra with much less,” cofounder and chief govt Matthew Roberts mentioned in an announcement to the Globe. Roberts added that the corporate is “comfortably worthwhile on almost each field of coffee we ship.”

Roberts grew up in Beverly and attended Bentley University, the place he first hatched the idea to freeze coffee to hurry up his morning routine. Roberts later related with MIT-trained engineer Doug Hoon to excellent the high-tech freezing methodology and located Cometeer. The firm’s headquarters are positioned in a renovated seafood manufacturing unit in Gloucester.

Cometeer’s layoffs come amidst robust instances for a lot of native tech firms, massive and small. HubSpot mentioned this week it’s laying off 7 percent of its staff, or about 500 individuals, due to slowing demand from clients. Wayfair introduced final month it was cutting 10 percent of its staff, together with greater than 900 individuals in Boston, attributable to falling gross sales. Startups together with Whoop, Snyk, and Starry have additionally minimize staff.


Aaron Pressman will be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @ampressman.