Russian entrepreneur Alexandra Dorf announced the closure of food technology startup Greeno in Dubai. The reason is that the funds to expand it have been exhausted. The project launched last summer.
Greeno ceased operations, employees were laid off with all salaries paid, and debts to suppliers were settled. Now Alexandra Dorf is trying to sell the warehouse equipment.
“I talked to clients: I honestly explained to them that we had run out of money to scale and without it we couldn’t break even,” said the businessman.
Greeno are refrigerators with ready-to-eat food that were installed in business centers in Dubai. Equipment for the project was imported from Germany and the staff consisted of employees from the Philippines, India and Russia. According to Dorf, he invested almost all the savings obtained from the sale of an apartment in Moscow in the project.
In August 2023, the founders became clear that the financial model was not going as they had initially planned. To break even, the company needed “about one more year and 40 points of sale instead of 10. This meant the need to additionally invest around $400,000 in the project,” says Dorf.
At this point, some partners decided not to continue financing and proposed closing the business. Alexandra Dorf then agreed with them that she would assume all risks and costs of closing the company and would try to attract investment to bring Greeno to breakeven.
The entrepreneur does not consider the closure of a startup a failure, for her it is “a huge experience, an excellent launch and an unfulfilled success.”
Author:
Karina Pardaeva
Source: RB
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