The company has been criticised for its “copycat” strategy of founding startups which replicate the business models of other established, successful companies.[2]
In 2011, 20 of the then-130 employees left Rocket Internet at the same time.[14][15] According to media coverage at the time, the reason for this string of layoffs was “bad quality of new products” and a “gruff manner” towards employees in the course of Rocket Internet’s expansion into a “large corporation”. The former Rocket Internet managers subsequently went on to found the incubator Project A Ventures with help from the Otto Group.[16