Aug 13, 2015

Enlarge Miscellaneous: Workers' compensation insurance rates will rise 0.9% Zen99, a San Francisco-based startup serving so-called 1099 workers, has announced that it will shut down on August 25. Launched in 2014 as a free service, Zen99 was backed by Y Combinator and received additional funding from Crunchfund, SV Angel, Upside Partnership and Collaborative Fund. In total, it raised $2.6 million across three rounds. Zen99 offered tax, finance and insurance assistance to the rising self-employed workforce of drivers, cleaners, and freelancers, estimating on its Crunchbase page that contractors are “growing at twice the rate of traditional employees.” They noted that they serve both service industry workers and “asset-based” workers such as Airbnb hosts and Ebay resellers. In a blog post , CEO Zachary Trier did not cite a reason for the abrupt shutdown, but urged users to download their data before it’s deleted on August 25, and offered a discount on Quickbooks’ Self-Employed tax software. In his post, Trier said that remaining capital would be returned to investors and promised to “comment more on the contractor space and this decision soon.” Zen99 is the latest in a series of “on-demand” services to close doors: Zirtual, a virtual assistant platform, closed in August; home-cleaning startup Homejoy shut down in July; and food delivery service Good Eggs recently laid off 140, eliminating operations in all cities except San Francisco. Want San Francisco Human Resources news in your inbox? Sign up for our free email newsletters. Home of the Day