Latch Moving Headquarters Out Of New York Following Layoffs, Stock Delisting
Latch, a maker of smart door technology soon to be rebranded as Door.com, is moving its headquarters from New York City to St. Louis.
Latch, which announced earlier this month that it will relaunch as Door.com in 2024, is moving to a 48K SF office and warehouse space at 1220 North Price Road in St. Louis. The move will allow it to streamline its operations while bringing inventory and core business functions together under one roof, according to a press release.
The relocation follows a tumultuous year for Latch where it was delisted from the Nasdaq, saw top executives depart and laid off more than 200 employees. Sixteen Latch employees already work in St. Louis, and the company is planning to have more than 30 staff at its new base of operations.
“The new headquarters will allow us to bring key teams together, such as sales and finance, centralize inventory, process returns, and perform testing in-house to create a strong foundation for building the business long term and handling potential future accelerated growth,” CEO Jamie Siminoff said in a statement.
Latch announced in a July filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it would lay off 59% of its workforce in the U.S. and Taiwan, or around 82 positions, and would replace many of the firm’s top executives, including its chief technology officer, chief financial officer and vice president of operations.
That round of layoffs came a year after Latch announced it was shedding 130 positions, or 28% of the company.
The company's descent aligned with many other firms that went public via a merger with a special-purpose acquisition company in the stock market boom of late 2020 and early 2021.
Global real estate giant Tishman Speyer sponsored a SPAC that merged with Latch in January 2021, valuing the proptech firm at $1.5B. The company raised around $450M in the transaction from Tishman Speyer and other investors, including funds managed by BlackRock, Fidelity Investments and D1 Capital Partners.
Its shares peaked at $17 per share in February 2021 before a long downward slide. It was delisted from the Nasdaq last month after it failed in 2022 to meet deadlines to file two quarterly reports and its 2022 annual report with the SEC. The stock was trading at 90 cents per share price early Monday.
As it ditches the Big Apple for a flex office arrangement in the Midwest, Latch is now looking to hire several St. Louis-based roles, including an accounting senior manager, revenue operations manager and accounting director.
Staff already in St. Louis include David Lillis, the senior vice president of finance, who is expected to take over as chief financial officer later this year, and Chris Peckham, the head of sales.
Latch’s rebranding to Door.com comes after its May acquisition of Honest Days Work, a software-as-a-service firm founded by Siminoff that targets residential service providers like drivers, dog walkers and housekeepers. Siminoff, who also created the doorbell company Ring, agreed to become Latch’s CEO as part of the all-stock deal.
