Airbnb Backed Zeus Living Lays Off Half of Remaining Staff

Zeus, a company that provides furnished apartments for stays of more than 30 days in 6 metropolitan areas across the US, has announced the departure of 73 staff members. The lay-off represent around half of remaining staff after a previous round of redundancies at the end of March.

The Airbnb backed business is predicting that revenue for 2020 will only amount to 55% of what was projected and that, in the words of CEO Kulveer Taggar:

“Short and long-term markets have and will continue to shift”

The San Francisco based company has also returned a PPP loan that they had applied for and that was to be allocated to payroll coverage. It has also been reported that Zeus Living has asked its landlords to switch from leases to revenue sharing agreements as it struggles to pay them for April and May.

Last spring we were reporting on successful funding rounds for Zeus Living, and today’s news is a sad, if not entirely unexpected, turn of events for a company operating in one of the sectors most affected by the global pandemic.

Furnished up-market serviced apartments was a business model that was tipped by many to shine this year, and backers such as Airbnb will be hoping that Zeus Living can outlast travel restrictions and make the most of demand on the other side.