Managed by Q’s Staff More Than Halved Following Acquisition
The layoffs at Managed by Q came as competitor Eden bought the company from WeWork.
By Nicholas Rizzi March 9, 2020 4:27 pm
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Managed by Q cut more than half of the company’s staff amidst rival Eden‘s $25 million acquisition of the office management startup.
More than 75 employees from New York City-based Managed by Q were laid off last week, leaving only 30 employees on staff, Forbes first reported. Managed by Q co-founder Dan Teran confirmed the news today in a Medium post.
A source told Commercial Observer that a number of employees were not offered positions by Eden following its purchase of Managed by Q from WeWork (WE), and the coworking firm provided severance packages to the workers.
While Managed by Q’s currently remains its own brand, the San Francisco-based Eden plans to phase it out in the coming weeks, according to Forbes.
“For the past six years Managed by Q was the context for our culture, and now it will be something else, probably many things,” Teran wrote in the post. “I could not be more excited to watch the infinite potential of this team and our culture continue to unfold.”
A spokeswoman for Eden declined to comment.
Last week, rival office management startup Eden bought Managed by Q from WeWork for a reported $25 million, beating out co-founder Teran’s bid of $23 million. Eden CEO and co-founder Joe Du Bey previously told Commercial Observer that it closed on a $29 million Series B1 round, led by JLL (JLL), to help fund the purchase and saw it as a way to “consolidate our category.”
“It’s going to make us better as a combined company,” Du Bey said.
Du Bey declined to comment last week on how much staff Eden would retain from Managed by Q, but told CO a “substantial” number of its technology workers would be brought on.
Managed by Q was founded in 2013 by Teran and Saman Rahmanian and built a single platform for companies to hire vendors like cleaning crews, office managers and IT support. In April 2019, WeWork bought Managed by Q for $220 million as part of a slew of acquisitions the coworking giant was making in an effort to move past the shared-office business it started with, as CO reported.
However, after WeWork’s failed initial public offering and as the firm reportedly came close to running out of cash, WeWork had started to sell some of its acquisitions as majority backer SoftBank (SFTBY) Group attempts to turn the company around.
Since November 2019, WeWork sold marketing software startup Conductor, workplace analytics company Teem and its investment in women-focused coworking space The Wing, Bloomberg reported.
Teran reportedly got together with a team of investors to buy back Managed by Q, but the deal fell through after Eden offered to pay a higher price.
Update: This story had been updated to show the timeline of the layoffs.
