According to Recode, Google is getting into the home services game by hiring staff members at Homejoy, a startup for hiring professional cleaners.
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Lawyers have also heard the call, and numerous on-demand companies are, indeed, facing these lawsuits.
On Friday, Homejoy announced that it is shutting its doors and will cease operations on July 31.
The San Francisco company was smack dab in the middle of one of the fastest-growing startup sectors – on-demand marketplaces, or apps that connect people with a service or product.
Homejoy was founded in 2012 by Cheung and her brother Aaron. The company’s revenue came from taking a percentage of every transaction that it setup between a customer and a home service worker.
Gig economy companies like Homejoy do not hire the workers who help keep their platforms afloat as employees, which means that they don’t pay employer taxes or have an obligation to pay minimum wage, provide lunch breaks, or compensate workers for time between jobs.
Those lawsuits made fundraising that much harder, Adora Cheung told Re/code. Despite all of this, the company encountered significant difficulties raising funds for a Series C, which reportedly tied into the decision to close operations; the company had raised almost $40 million in funding to date from the likes of First Round Capital, Google Ventures, and Paypal founder Max Levchin.
Some companies are changing their employment structure in response.
The company will fulfill any existing appointments but will not book any new appointments, it said.
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It appears Project Brillo and Android TV aren’t the only ways Google is looking to make a mark on your home. The same is not necessarily true for an independent contractor.
