Roofstock, an online marketplace for investing in leased single-family rental homes, has laid off 27% of its staff. This comes just five months after the startup laid off 20% of its workforce. The company raised $240 million at a $1.9 billion valuation less than a year ago, with SoftBank Vision Fund 2 leading the financing round. The funding included participation from existing and new backers such as Khosla Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Bain Capital Ventures. The company has raised over $365 million in funding since its 2015 inception.
Roofstock lets people buy and sell rental homes in dozens of US markets. The startup aims to allow both institutional and retail investors to buy and sell homes without affecting renters. Meanwhile, buyers can also generate income from day one. The company has facilitated over $5 billion in transaction volume, with more than half of it coming from the last year alone.
According to an email sent to employees by co-founder and CEO Gary Beasley, the layoffs are “in response to the challenging macro environment” and the “negative impact” it is having on Roofstock’s business. Beasley stated that the company was not expecting to cut more staff so soon but needed to “right size” to reduce the cash burn rate and ensure adequate capital runway until the market eventually turns.
The startup raised its last round of financing in March 2022. Just days before a previous round of layoffs last year, Roofstock made headlines for selling its first single-family home using non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
The slowdown in the housing market, coupled with rising mortgage rates, has led to challenges for many real estate technology companies in 2022. Opendoor, Redfin, Compass, Better.com, Homeward, and Reali are among the other startups that also laid off workers.
Roofstock, which was valued at $1.9B in 2020, has laid off 27% of its staff in a second round of layoffs.
