SoftBank Funnels Millions Into Fast-Growing Single-Family Rental Investment Platform

Roofstock, a single-family rental online investment platform, has raised $240M in a Series E round led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2 as investors continue piling into the single-family rental market. The Oakland company is now valued at $1.94B, three times its previous valuation of $600M, according to The Real Deal. Roofstock most recently raised $50M in a January 2020 Series D round and almost tripled its revenue in 2021, facilitating $2.5B in single-family rental deals, The Real Deal repo…

The New Tech Hubs: Pandemic Accelerates Industry’s Decentralization

Besides making hybrid work schedules into the new reality for U.S. office properties, the coronavirus pandemic is helping spur the partial decentralization of the tech industry away from its traditional coastal cities, according to a new report by The Brookings Institution. The shift doesn’t represent a massive exodus from the current tech hubs, but the pandemic did mark a slowdown in their growth and result in a corresponding uptick in tech jobs in midsized and smaller places with high q…

February Startup Funding Dips As Investors Show New Caution, But Is Still Way Up Year Over Year

Global venture funding in February 2022 fell by $10 billion month over month, clocking in at $52 billion, based on an analysis of Crunchbase data, as startup investors seem to be coming off last year’s highs and assessing the impact of the Ukrainian conflict, record inflation and public-market turmoil.

WeWork Losses Top $4.4B, But Earnings Report Still Tinged With Optimism

WeWork’s losses in 2021 exceeded those of 2020 by some $1.3B, but the losses reported in its second earnings statement since beginning to trade on the New York Stock Exchange in October were tempered by quarter-over-quarter revenue gains. The coworking giant reported on Friday that it lost more than $4.4B in 2021, an increase from about $3.1B in 2020, though almost half of its losses ($2B) for 2021 were in the first quarter of the year. …

Finding Value in the Collective Wisdom, Part 2

Alex Shtarkman, Vice President of Revolution Ventures, taps into the value of collaboration when it comes to tech investing.

How the Pandemic Broke Silicon Valley’s Stranglehold on Tech Jobs

Silicon Valley, make way for Silicon U.S.A. In a feedback loop that could transform the economic geography of the U.S., millions of Americans are moving, and companies are following them—tech companies in particular. In turn, this migration of companies and investment is attracting more workers to places that in the past usually lost talent wars. This is a reversal of a decadelong trend in the opposite direction. It could have big implications for which parts of the U.S. will prosper and for …

Four big landlords get paid to model green retrofits

Decarbonization is no longer just a  buzzword. In the past few years, New York has tightened the screws on real estate, a sector that belches nearly 70 percent of New York City’s climate-warming emissions and one-third of the state’s. A city law demands that most large buildings cut them by 80 percent by 2050. A 2019 state law demands an 85 percent reduction in the state’s emissions from 1990 levels by 2050, an aggressive benchmark likely to trigger mandates for properties….

VC Money Continues to Pour into Proptech Investments

Flexible Co-Warehousing Pioneer Expanding Nationwide

Fundrise, a crowdfunding real estate investment platform that sells shares for as low as $10, announced this week it will spend $130 million to acquire properties for a national expansion of Saltbox, the co-warehousing startup. Saltbox, which provides logistics space primarily to e-commerce entrepreneurs in small, flexible warehouse suites, grew from a single flagship operation in Atlanta to six US locations in 2021, including in Los Angeles, Denver, Dallas and Seattle.

Single-family rental marketplace Roofstock hits $2B valuation

It’s heady times in the single-family rental market. Roofstock, an online marketplace for investors in the asset class, raised $240 million from SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2 and others in a Series E round — more than doubling its equity funding — at a valuation just shy of $2 billion.