Tutorspree, The Tutor-Matching Startup Backed By Sequoia And YC, Shuts Down

Tutorspree, the New York-based tutor-matching startup that had been dubbed the “Airbnb for tutoring” when it launched out of Y Combinator’s Winter 2011 class, is shutting down.

The company’s three co-founders Aaron Harris, Josh Abrams and Ryan Bednar announced the closure this morning in a post to Tutorspree’s official blog, writing:

“Ultimately, we learned about the challenges of willing a company into existence, of building an incredible and unique team to tackle constantly shifting challenges. And finally, we learned about how to make the toughest decision of all – to shut Tutorspree down, not because it was not a business, but because we could not make it the company we wanted.”

In an email to TechCrunch, Tutorspree CEO Aaron Harris added the following comment:

“We built something we were incredibly proud of, but got to the point where we realized it would not scale in a way that would meet our goals. It was a tough decision emotionally, but it was the right move from the rational perspective.”

Tutorspree, which matched students with high-quality local tutors, had raised a total of $2.2 million from investors including Sequoia Capital with its latest $800,000 investment coming just this past February. Its website indicates that the company has a staff of 10.