Turntide: Bill Gates-Backed Climate Tech Unicorn Lays Off 20% of Staff

Turntide: Bill Gates-Backed Climate Tech Unicorn Lays Off 20% of Staff

Summary :

Climate startup Turntide has laid off almost a fifth of its staff a month after raising $80 million from investors at a $1 billion valuation, Insider understands.

The California-based firm, which has raised $485 million to date, has been backed by Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Robert Downey Jr’s FootPrint Coalition Ventures, and Amazon’s Climate Pledge. The bulk of cuts took place in mid-July, a month after the firm boasted of being “one of a handful of climate tech companies to achieve unicorn status in the first half of 2022.”

In his LinkedIn post, Morris added that he took “full responsibility” for the job cuts and that the company had taken some “calculated risks with the wind at our back, and those winds shifted.”

Layoffs and hiring freezes have been rife across the tech sector this year as economic uncertainty takes hold, but climate tech has largely absorbed the shock.

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