Proptech firm Roofstock has laid off about 27% of its workers at present, in response to an electronic mail despatched to workers seen by TechCrunch. The cuts come simply 5 months after the startup laid off 20% of its workforce.
The corporate’s web site states that it has 400+ workers, or “Roofsters” as they’re dubbed, however it isn’t recognized if that determine is present.
Roofstock, an internet market for investing in leased single-family rental houses, one 12 months in the past raised $240 million at a $1.9 billion valuation. SoftBank Imaginative and prescient Fund 2 led that financing, which included participation from present and new backers together with Khosla Ventures, Lightspeed Enterprise Companions, Bain Capital Ventures and others. Roofstock has raised a complete of over $365 million in funding since its 2015 inception, per Crunchbase.
In response to the e-mail seen by TechCrunch, co-founder and CEO Gary Beasley mentioned at present’s discount in drive (RIF) was “in response to the difficult macro surroundings” and the “unfavorable affect” it’s having on Roofstock’s enterprise.
He added that the corporate was not anticipating to have to chop extra workers so quickly however that it wanted to “proper dimension” in an effort “to scale back money burn price” and guarantee it has “ample capital runway till the market finally turns.”
Beasley despatched the e-mail as a result of apparently, the Zoom assembly the place it was addressed “maxed out on attendees.”
Oakland, Calif.-based Roofstock lets individuals purchase and promote rental houses in dozens of U.S. markets. The premise behind the corporate is that each institutional and retail buyers should buy and promote houses with out forcing renters to depart their houses. In the meantime, patrons may also presumably generate revenue from day one.
On the time of its elevate in March 2022, the corporate mentioned that it had facilitated greater than $5 billion in transaction quantity, greater than half of which had come from the final 12 months alone.
Simply days earlier than its final spherical of layoffs final 12 months, Roofstock made headlines for promoting its first single-family dwelling utilizing NFTs, or non-fungible tokens.
Rising mortgage charges and a slowdown within the housing market led to challenges for a lot of actual property know-how corporations in 2022 that proceed this 12 months. Opendoor, Redfin, Compass, Higher.com and Homeward have been among the many different startups that additionally laid off employees. IBuyer Reali additionally introduced it was shutting down after elevating $100 million the 12 months prior.
TechCrunch has reached out to Roofstock however had not heard again on the time of writing however a number of sources confirmed that layoffs had taken place at present.