Placester, tech platform for real estate professionals, slashes staff amid shakeup

Real estate tech platform Placester, which was valued at $200 million last year, has laid off more than 100 employees in a companywide restructuring that will return it to “development mode.”

Changes at the Boston-based firm that provides mobile services to real estate professionals, included its top executive. Its original CEO and co-founder Matt Barba will return, according to Inman. He had been replaced by Omar Hussain earlier this year. Hussain arrived at the company from Imprivata, a healthcare IT security company. Barba was most recently chief technology officer.

The company’s vice president of marketing, Seth Price, said that firm will return to “development mode.”

“It’s the hardest thing to do, when you have something that’s going well, to put on the breaks and say, ‘hey, we’ve got to go into development mode and build for a period of time,’” Price told the outlet.

Placester, which was founded in 2010, has raised $100 million and is backed by New Enterprise Associates and Romulus Capital. It featured in The Real Deal’s top real estate tech deals of 2017, after securing a $50 million funding round, and was valued at $200 million at the end of the year.

The layoffs happened Thursday, and reportedly left just 25 employees at the company, down from over 1f40. Amid the announcements, Hussein will now serve as executive chairman of the board. [Inman] — David Jeans