Shared Housing Startup HomeShare Shuts Down

A San Francisco-based shared housing tech startup that matched roommates to live in converted micro-apartments has shut down.

In a letter on its website, HomeShare CEO and founder Jeffrey Pang announced Friday that his company has shuttered its operations.

The closure comes a couple of weeks after the company laid off a majority of its staff and cut costs due to "unexpected financial constraints arising from a financing that did not materialize," Pang said.

"It’s with a heavy heart that I am announcing that HomeShare is shutting down," he wrote in a letter on the company's website.

"I apologize that we were not able to fulfill our promise to you," he continued. "HomeShare’s mission of making cities more affordable began and ended with you in mind. We are disappointed in ourselves for failing to provide the level of service you deserved from us and we thank you for taking a leap of faith on a young company with a dream to improve the lives of residents."

Bisnow's message to Pang seeking comment was not returned.

Founded in 2016, HomeShare partnered with landlords and helped match roommates based on compatibility using algorithms and also converted apartments into smaller micro-units. 

For example, the company would lease a two-bedroom unit, then separate some of the space using privacy partitions to create another room. 

Due to the housing affordability crisis in California, popular demand enabled the company to grow across five markets including San Francisco, Silicon Valley, New York, Los Angeles and Seattle through deals with 50 properties.

The company raised $5.7M in seed funding in 2017 and had deals with Equity Residential, Sares-Regis Group and Fairfield Residential. 

In a previous interview with Bisnow, Pang said the company celebrated its 2,000th resident in March.