INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
As the market continues to turn against the wave of highly valued venture-backed startups operating with little end in sight to their huge
and restructuring before public opinion forces the issue on them.Fair.com, a startup building a flexible car ownership business that is
today that it will be laying off 40% of its staff
On top of this, it is removing its CFO, Tyler Painter, the brother of the CEO and co-founder (and car business veteran) Scott Painter
the business will be affected
are going to be restructured
(As a marker though, there are some 539 employees listed on LinkedIn, which would work out at about 215 people.)He did note that the
business is not planning on shuttering any specific operations: leasing services for those driving for on-demand services, and its
consumer-focused service, will both remain operational, even as certain geographies and certain segments of the markets that Fair is serving
Kirk has a decade of experience running treasury and capital markets for large fleet companies, and is well known on the capital markets
Painter sent out to staff is included below.Painter (the CEO) said in an interview earlier today that the reason for the move was to
last couple of years, at a rate of 5x, Painter said
In 2018, ahead of its funding from SoftBank, the company picked up the unprofitable leasing business of Uber; and earlier this year it
picked up Canvas, a car leasing business previously owned by Ford
Fair is backed by the same investor that helped propel both WeWork and Uber to giant valuations ahead of the companies seeing their fortunes
withdraw its filing and just this week saw SoftBank scoop up 80% of its business at a cut price in order to keep the whole thing from going
under).Cautionary tales for Fair, which is only profitable in certain parts of its business and is now turning its attention to fixing
that.Painter maintained that this was a proactive move, made not because SoftBank or another investor leaned on it to do so
noise in system, but for us we are doing this proactively, on our terms
We recognise what we are seeing so we are being proactive to avoid this
planning to go public next year, has seen a widening loss
As one of the pioneers in automotive fintech, we now need to focus on being a profitable company
Our technology, our simple product design, and our focus on the customer are second to none
While we are proud of our growth, we are here for the long term
with the capital-intensive supply side of our business
Going forward, Fair will be a smaller team, focused on doing fewer things well
We have created an entirely new category that consumers love
We should all be proud of these achievements and I am personally grateful to all those who have given their time and expertise to deliver
the future we set out to build.Now, we will set out to transform the supply side of our business over the coming months, focus on building a
profitable model, and operating with the rigor of a publicly traded company.I expect everyone to have questions about what this means for
These types of changes are painful, as I know from my previous experiences building companies
Our leadership team is responsible for the long-term sustainability of Fair, and no matter how difficult these decisions are, we believe
they are the right steps in ensuring we have a bright future as a company
We thank you for being on this journey with us.-Scott
