The Way Forward

The Way Forward

We unfortunately needed to announce that we’re letting part of the team go during a call earlier today. We made this incredibly difficult decision to ensure that we stay true to Bitpanda’s mission and keep building the leading investment platform in Europe and beyond. 

While this is a tough decision to make, it was nonetheless necessary to make sure we’re robustly well-capitalised to navigate the storm and get out of it financially healthy, no matter how long it takes for markets to recover, without compromising on product quality and customer experience.

We sent this message on Slack and via email to everyone in the team earlier today. Sharing it here for full transparency into why we need to take decisive action today and what’s next. 

Dear Pandas,

Thanks for joining us during the call earlier today. We are writing to you to summarise what we discussed and hopefully provide more clarity to everyone. We’ve always been firm believers in radical transparency, so we’re going to walk you through why we need to take decisive action today and what’s next.

Why we need to take decisive action

We started Bitpanda with a clear goal: to build the leading investment platform in Europe and beyond. Today, we are offering millions of retail investors the opportunity to invest in Europe’s broadest range of digital assets, safe, simple, 24/7. It is our commitment to follow this mission and continue to offer a best in class service to our customers.

Over the past few months, the market sentiment has dramatically changed, fuelled by geopolitical tensions, rising inflation and concerns about the imminence of a recession. There’s lots of uncertainty in the financial markets right now and, while we do know that the industry is cyclical, nobody knows when the market sentiment will change.

We’ve seen crypto winters before and we’ve always got out of them stronger due to our focus on being a financially healthy company, having a conservative approach and aiming at all times to be self-funded. This is also true now, and that implies that cost management is essential. We need to make fundamental changes in how we operate and sharpen our focus by getting back to the basics, prioritising safety and compliance, user experience, education and community, while deprioritizing everything else. 

Besides this, as a hypergrowth company we were experiencing growing pains. In keeping up with the industry, our team’s growth rate has been too high. We were facing challenges in setting up the right internal processes and infrastructure to successfully onboard new joiners, put them in the right place to win and enable them to deliver impact. We reached a point where more people joining didn’t make us more effective, but created coordination overheads instead, particularly in this new market reality. Looking back now, we realise that our hiring speed was not sustainable. That was a mistake. 

We are committed to Bitpanda’s mission and get out of this stronger. Therefore, we need to take decisive actions now. The implications hurt: we need to let part of our team go and scale down to a target organisational size of about 730 people. These are colleagues we appreciate and care for, who are doing a great job. We made this difficult decision to ensure that we are robustly well-capitalised to navigate the storm and get out of it financially healthy, no matter how long it takes for markets to recover, without compromising on product quality, the safety of our customers’ assets and customer experience. It is a tough, but necessary decision and we are confident that the new organisational design will help us be more focused, effective, and stronger as a company.

What’s next

We wish our communication about this could have been personal and with no questions remaining open. However, strict legal requirements in the context of the different local jurisdictions imply significant restrictions here. Today, each of you will get an email to let you know where we are in the process as we go through this together. We will aim to provide more clarity in individual messages, to the extent this is legally possible. Rest assured that we will share immediate updates with you on a regular basis and as soon as this is possible for us to do.

For people impacted by the reductions

For those who will be leaving Bitpanda, we want you to know that we are thankful for your hard work and commitment. We do understand how disconcerting receiving such news can be. This is why we will do everything in our power to support you in your transition to the next role by offering packages that go beyond the employment law requirements in your market.

Besides this, we are immediately offering the following support options to anyone potentially affected: 

• Bitpanda Talent Connect Hub. We are setting up a support centre and you can opt-in to receive additional support in finding your next role, including access to dedicated workshops on how you can build your LinkedIn profile and CV, how to prepare for interviews or how to search for your next role;
• 1:1 coaching with Talent Acquisition partners. You can directly connect with our TA partners, clustered per department. They will provide individual feedback on your CV, recommend new job opportunities, connect you to companies that are currently hiring and recruitment agencies, as well as help you leverage these types of relationships to help you land your next role;
• References. The senior leadership at Bitpanda, as well as the People team, will provide written and verbal references to support you with your job search;
• Mental Health support. We will extend our OpenUp partnership to cover Pandas that are leaving us now, such that you will get free access to certified psychologists that can support you during these challenging times;
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP). We set up the EAP to offer 24/7/365 support covering a broad range of topics such as physical wellbeing, mental health, family and relationship counselling, family care, grief, financial counselling, legal counselling, emergency support, and more.

For people that received offers of employment from us recently

The implications described also mean that we have to rescind offers of employment we’ve made, since the roles we were hiring for are no longer available in the new organisational setup and are no longer aligned with our refocused priorities. All new hires whose offers are rescinded have already been notified.

For people that stay

We do acknowledge you might feel uncertain about the future and we want to assure you these are one-time measures that we took to make sure Bitpanda keeps what it is and has been: a rock solid company and a great employer. We take these decisive actions today to make sure we are well-positioned to keep building on our mission, without having to make further adjustments in the future.

Respecting the Pandas that may be leaving us shortly, we will refrain from getting together this week to discuss the future. Starting next week, we will keep building from where we left off, so here’s a short overview of what to expect next:

• Company TownHall: we will get together to discuss company strategy and new delivery roadmaps;
• 1:1swith your manager: to talk about these changes, discuss the scope of your role in the new organisational setup and address any questions / concerns you might have;
• Team meetings: senior leaders in the organisation will bring together their teams to refocus and build their Q3 roadmaps together.

Some final thoughts

We know this is a lot to take in. So please take your time to read this through and reach out directly to us - anyone in the leadership team, your manager or your People Partner - if you have any questions. We’re here to answer them in the best way possible and support all of you.

Finally, just one more comment: Thank you. Each and every one of you. You brought Bitpanda to where it is today. And we are committed to staying true to what we built - the leading investment platform in Europe and beyond.

Eric, Paul, and Christian