Food delivery startup Jinn is pulling out of all cities other than London

Jinn

London-headquartered food delivery startup Jinn has pulled out of every city it operates in other than London, TechCrunch has reported.

The company said in May that it had raised $10 million (£7.6 million) in funding, which it said it planned to use to grow in its existing markets.

But now the company has ended operations in cities including Edinburgh, Manchester, and Birmingham.

"As we continue our path towards profitability, we have decided to focus our operations in London, where we currently receive over 90% of our orders," founder Mario Navarro reportedly told TechCrunch. "With the objective of being profitable before the end of the year, we have temporarily paused our activity in other markets”.

Jinn sent a text message to its riders in Edinburgh which informed them that the service was closing in the city.

Jinn

TechCrunch reported that there may have been layoffs at the company. Jinn did not reply to an emailed question about layoffs, and nobody at the company's East London office was available to talk to the press.

Rival food delivery startup Feast heard about disruption at Jinn and speculated in a now-deleted blog post that the company was closing. But Jinn told Business Insider that "the blog post is wrong, we're currently operating as usual." Business Insider ordered a box of doughnuts on Jinn to make sure that the service was still operational in London.

There’s a rumour that started in the London Startups Facebook group that Jinn has closed. It hasn’t - I ordered these doughnuts to prove it http://pic.twitter.com/XDzcGSQFco
— James Cook (@JamesLiamCook) July 26, 2017

Jinn made headlines in January when dozens of its couriers went on strike over changes to their pay.

Jinn protest

Leon Herrera, Jinn's cofounder and chief operating officer (COO), was heckled and told he was a "thief" when he confronted the protestors on the street. "You're treating us like slaves," one of the protesters shouted at Herrera.

Additional reporting by Sam Shead.

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