Big Redundancy Round at Brazilian PropTech Unicorn Quinto Andar

The Brazilian real estate marketplace company Quinto Andar has made some of its staff redundant. In an article published last week, the local newspaper Estadão claimed that the company had laid off some 800 employees representing around 20% of the company's staff.

Estadão claims that because of the redundancies and cutbacks on staff health benefits, morale at the PropTech unicorn is very low. The article also speculates that the reason behind Quinto Andar's cutbacks is the company's poor performance in the real estate market amid rising interest rates.

In response, the Sao Paulo based firm claimed in a statement that the adjustment was due to a "reprioritization of projects" and that the number of staff being let go was only 4% of its total figure. A company spokesperson sent the following to Estadão:

"As part of our internal efficiency cycles and of a company in constant evolution, we frequently make adjustments in how we organize ourselves internally and, in some cases, in the sizing of teams. We do not publicly comment on these changes because they are course adjustments that all companies make from time to time and also to preserve our people." [translated from Portuguese]

Despite having made cutbacks and a reported hiring freeze this month, 2022 has seen the end-to-end real estate specialist take on an active role in the M&A market and a free-handed approach to its marketing spend.

Quinto Andar pulled off the audacious purchase of Argentinian portal operator Navent at the beginning of the year and followed up with the acquisition of condo management platform NokNox in March. The company also paid big money to sponsor the Brazilian version of the Big Brother television series and has been very active in marketing its model to potential users and offers incentives of around $150 for each listing an agent brings to the platform.

Since its foundation by Gabriel Braga and Andre Penha in 2012, QuintoAndar has had great success in digitizing rental transactions in its home city of Sao Paulo and across Brazil in recent years and has expanded into sales transactions with success since 2019 as well.

The company has raised a staggering three-quarters of a billion dollars to date and as of its $300 million Series E round in May was valued at $4 billion.