Rent-to-own startup Divvy Homes has reportedly conducted a new round of layoffs on Wednesday, which included cuts to a number of high-level positions. This is at least the second round of layoffs for the company in the last six months.
Divvy has yet to confirm the layoffs, which were first reported by Inman. However, a number of former employees have posted to LinkedIn about the layoffs, and at least six employees were affected, including a software engineer and a senior project manager.
“Today was rough. I was one of the people impacted by the layoffs at Divvy Homes. I’m not sure what’s next but I’m reminded of a quote that has always stuck with me: ‘There will always be someone smarter. Richer. More experienced. Better connected. You can’t control those things. The two things you can control are how hard you work and how you react to things,’” Hardy Farrow, former senior project manager at Divvy, posted on LinkedIn. “I’m choosing today to be proud of what I built at Divvy and grateful that I gave my job every ounce of energy I had. If you are hiring for a product manager or just want to jam on entrepreneurial ideas, reach out.”
A number of other former employees, including the company’s former IT manager and the former head of marketing, also posted that they were affected by the layoffs.
“I, unfortunately, was part of the second round of #layoffs through Divvy Homes yesterday. I am saddened to leave a company whose mission I truly stood behind, but am thankful for the wealth of knowledge and experience I gained in my one and half years there,” Jade Allen, a former sales executive for Divvy, posted to the site.
Divvy conducted a prior round of layoffs in September 2022. At that time, about 12% of its staff, or about 40 employees, were affected by the job cuts. The company cited worsening economic conditions as the driving force for that round of layoffs.
Divvy Homes, led by founder and CEO Adena Hefets, is a proptech startup that offers buyers a path to homeownership via a rent-to-own program. The company purchases a home for a potential buyer and then rents it back to them for up to three years as they prepare financially for homeownership. During that time, a portion of the rental payments each month go toward the down payment on the home, though it doesn’t accrue interest and can’t be tapped by the renter for other expenses.
The company raised about $200 million in Series D funding in late 2021, which nearly quadrupled its valuation to $2 billion at the time. Nearly 25,000 real estate agents worked with Divvy as of August 2021, according to company estimates.
In October, Fast Company reported that Divvy charges higher rents than other landlords in some of its 19 markets. The publication reviewed court cases and interviewed renters who said the Silicon Valley firm was slow and reticent to make repairs and had increased evictions. (Divvy said its eviction rate was in line with the national average.)
