糖心视频

Business

The Meetup-WeWork Deal Isn’t All Roses

Morning Report:After the WeWork deal, Meetup struggles to retain its identity.

News broke in late November that WeWork would acquire Meetup, a deal that took many by surprise.听The differences in the companies were staggering, as we noted at the time. WeWork had raised . Meetup raised under $20 million, total, during its life .

Follow Crunchbase News on &

The dramatic scale-difference between the two companies has mattered in the aftermath of the deal. According , things aren’t meshing perfectly between the inclusive Meetup and the unicorn-racing WeWork.

One example from her piece stood out:

Employees鈥 fears about WeWork weren鈥檛 entirely unfounded. After WeWork acquired Meetup, employees were asked to sign a binding agreement to follow a 鈥渄ispute resolution program鈥 to resolve any disputes between the company and its workers. […]

Former Meetup employees said the document was presented to them as something they had to sign in order to keep their jobs.

Arbitration agreements are under fire in the wake of a host of sexual harassment claims in tech. Critics argue that arbitration agreements help push harassment under the rug.

There’s a quote that I love, and sadly I couldn’t find the article where I first recorded it, but it goes something like this:听being acquired sucks, and it always sucks more than you think it will. It’s something that Ron Miller got out of an interviewee on stage a few years ago at TechCrunch Disrupt SF if my memory serves.

It applies here.

From The听:

  • The Crunchbase Daily is off today. It’s back tomorrow.

Stay up to date with recent funding rounds, acquisitions, and more with the Crunchbase Daily.

67.1K Followers

CTA

Discover and act on private market opportunities with predictive company intelligence.

Copy link