Modular builder Veev to lay off a third of its workforce

Modular home startup Veev Group raised $400 million to hire more workers six months ago and now plans to lay off a third of its workforce.

The San Mateo-based firm will lay off 100 workers, or 30 percent of its staff, as it pivots to building low-slung homes instead of high-rise buildings, the Silicon Valley Business Journal reported, citing an Israeli news site.

The cuts come after Veev raised $400 million in a Series D round in March that valued it at $1 billion, according to PitchBook Data. The company said at the time it planned to use the money to build its workforce from 380 to 475 employees and expand into new markets.

In a statement, Veev called the layoffs “a strategic decision.” The company didn’t respond to a request for comment from the Business Journal.

Veev plans to provide expanded severance to laid off workers and will help them find new jobs, it told the CTech news agency.

The company designs, builds and assembles all the components of its turnkey homes.

It fashions buildings from prefabricated panels that it makes in Union City that Veev co-founder and CEO Amit Haller has likened to a semiconductor factory.

The construction technology startup, founded in 2008, produces components for residential projects — walls, ceilings and floors, with electrical and plumbing installed — which can then be assembled at a given site, cutting construction timelines and labor costs. It says the modular system can build housing four times faster than traditional methods.

In July, Veev leased a 507,000-square-foot warehouse in Hayward as part of its workforce expansion.

In March 2021, it raised $100 million from a new Tel Aviv Stock Exchange platform.

The layoffs at Veev come three months after the shutdown of Reali, based in San Mateo, also founded by Haller, which ran an online home-selling site. Despite raising $160 million, it ceased operations in August, laying off 140 people, according to the Business Journal.

Reali blamed its closure on “the challenging real estate and financial market conditions and unfavorable capital-raising environment.”

— Dana Bartholomew

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