Cultured meat start-up Vow is shedding 30 per cent of its workforce, making 25 staff members redundant, with chief executive George Peppou blaming slower than expected regulatory approvals for the “incredibly difficult decision”.
In a Slack message to all staff, who are known as “Vowzers”, Peppou said on Monday that the redundancies were in part due to a “very challenging funding environment”.In addition to Hostplus and Blackbird Ventures’ contributions to its $US50 million fund, Vow has also attracted investment from Square Peg and the family office of Atlassian billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes.
The chief executive told this masthead it was “an incredibly difficult decision” that it “truly hurt to make”. Peppou said the redundancies were not a reflection on Vow’s staff but instead on what the start-up needs to achieve in the next two years.