Russia-backed grocery delivery application Buyk, which has been disabled by sanctions, is hunting for American backers in an effort to save itself from bankruptcy, The post has learned.
In a companywide call hours after Buyk abruptly suspended its 15-minute delivery administration and furloughed 98% of its employees because of assents on Russia, CEO James Walker spread out three options: “We find funds, we observe a purchaser or we need to liquidate.”
“We’re looking for short-term funding, subsidizing that permits us to get the lights back on,” Walker added, as indicated by a recording of the Saturday video call with 650 laborers in New York and Chicago that was gotten by The Post. “I will give My very best for restart the company.”
Walker said he had addressed leaders from contending grocery applications including Gorillas and Gopuff, as well as delivery goliaths Doordash and Grubhub. It was not quickly certain if any of those organizations, some of which have their own subsidizing issues, would need to rescue Buyk or if other sources of cash could materialize.
“There are people who are exceptionally keen on purchasing the organization,” Walker demanded, acting courageously even as he said furloughed employees ought to apply for joblessness benefits and think about taking other jobs.
One Buyk representative told the post that Walker “said all the right things” on the call but that it seemed like “too little, too late.”
This coming Friday, Buyk employees should be paid for the fourteen day time frame paving the way to the past Friday’s suspension. On the off chance that Buyk doesn’t get momentary assets or a purchaser by then, at that point, employees will probably not be paid on schedule, Walker said. On the off chance that Buyk, goes into bankruptcy, he said, its resources will be offered to pay employees the wages they’re due.
Buyk sent off in New York last year as a side project of Samokat, a famous delivery application in Moscow and St. Petersburg that is somewhat constrained by Sberbank, a Russian state-owned bank. Sberbank was among the Russian banks authorized by the US and UK last week in counter for Vladimir Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine.
Walker told media on Friday that Buyk’s cash inconveniences were because of “sanctions against Russian banks” that have made making moves from Russia to the US “untenable.” While conversing with employees, Walker additionally accused “Putin’s unwillingness to let funds leave the borders of Russia.”