WeWork has severed ties with two more startups that joined the office space company before its downfall.
The office-space giant announced Wednesday it had sold software company Teem and divested its stake in the Wing, a co-working startup focused on women.
It is the latest push by WeWork to cut non-core businesses from its portfolio, as the company has sought to minimize costs following its well-publicized implosion last year.
“These sales mark the latest progress in WeWork’s evolution and allow our talented team to focus on the core business,” said co-CEO Artie Minson.
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After scrapping plans for a public offering, WeWork co-founder and CEO Adam Neumann was pushed out and the company avoided bankruptcy thanks to its largest investor, SoftBank. A multi-billion dollar rescue package with the Japanese conglomerate drove WeWork’s valuation down to $8 billion from $47 billion months earlier. In December, WeWork and SoftBank clinched a $1.75 billion credit facility from Goldman Sachs.
But in its effort to salvage its business, WeWork executives have begun shedding companies it acquired in the years and months before its demise. Some of these firms agreed to take stock options in WeWork — transactions that have caused headaches for their founders and executives as the valuation of WeWork has plummeted.
In December, WeWork sold Conductor, a marketing software firm, and shuttered operations of co-working firm Spacious, which it had acquired just five months earlier. WeWork also announced it would shut down its elementary school, WeGrow, at the end of the 2020 school year.
The sale of two other startups, group-meeting platform Meetup and building services provider Managed by Q, remain in process.
According to WeWork’s IPO prospectus, it most recently valued its 25 percent stake in the Wing at $58.8 million. It’s been considering the sale of its stake since October.
The relationship between the two firms soured after Jennifer Berrent, WeWork’s general counsel and a director of the Wing, was named as a defendant in a pregnancy-bias case against WeWork in November. The Wing’s founders issued a statement expressing shock, and deemed the allegations “appalling.”
WeWork acquired Teem, a software firm that provides tools for office analytics and conference room reservations, in 2018. The Salt Lake City-based startup launched in 2012 and serviced other clients including Airbnb and Dropbox. The acquisition price was not disclosed at the time, and WeWork did not disclose the sale price of Teem.