Katerra signs $650M contract with Saudi Arabia to build 8,000 homes

A SoftBank-backed construction startup that has faced questions about its ability to deliver projects in the U.S., just secured a contract to build thousands of homes in Saudi Arabia. The company, Katerra, confirmed to The Real Deal that it has entered a $650 million contract with the Saudi Arabia government to build 8,000 homes in the country. Katerra declined to comment further. The Silicon Valley-based firm, said to be valued north of $4 billion, has a sprawling portfolio of construction p…

Transparent Solar Panels Will Turn Windows Into Green Energy Collectors

A team of researchers from Michigan State University managed to develop a fully transparent solar panels – a breakthrough that could lead to countless applications in architecture, as well as other fields such as mobile electronics or the automotive industry. Previous attempts to create such a device have been made, but results were never satisfying enough, with low efficiency and poor material quality.

iOffice Buys Teem After WeWork Lets It Go

iOffice has scooped up conference room reservation startup Teem after WeWorkannounced plans to sell the company.  The Houston-based facility management software company had been in talks with Teem, which makes software to book meeting rooms. The two companies had some integrated solutions together before iOffice was bought by private equity firm Waud Capital Partners in 2018, said iOffice CEO Mark Peterson said in an interview with Crunchbase News. Teem was acquired by WeWork in Septem…

The Workplace of 2050, According to Experts

Just as the movie industry in the 1910s and ’20s went through a blossoming of tools and types of work, gaming is at the very early phase of that. Jobs will be more varied, and teams will continue to get larger and more distributed. A [game development] team may be situated in Lithuania with an artist in Vietnam and coders in Argentina. The developers may be 15 years old, as it’s easier to get into the digital economy than a traditional job [at that age]. We’ll see [more] companies where there is…

Progress Report: WeWork 90 Days After Announcing A 90-Day Turnaround Plan

SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son claimed turning WeWork around would be simple, but the two months since his company took control have proven to be just the start of a long process. Jan. 9 marked 90 days since WeWork gave a presentation to investors laying out a 90-day plan to pull the company out of the spiral that began with its disastrous IPO filing. The PowerPoint was shown Oct. 11, when the company was in negotiations for a bailout loan from JPMorgan Chase, Pitchbook reported. But when Soft…

Download CREtech’s December Funding Report (Free of Charge, Only For A Limited Time)

The CREtech monthly PropTech Funding Report highlights trends in venture capital invesments in real estate tech (proptech) companies.  These trends have a profound impact on the greater real estate industry and the built environment. Strategic proptech trends have the potential to create opportunities, drive significant innovation and disruption. In this data rich report, CREtech analyzed and lists the companies funded, their investors, and trends for the month of December 2019.  Downloa…

Waze for Work? Navigation Apps Come to Mazelike Offices

Firas Ajam has been a resident physician at Jersey Shore University Medical Center for three years, but he’s still unfamiliar with parts of the 26-acre, 3 million-square-foot campus in Neptune, N.J. When a patient got sick a few months ago in a unit where Dr. Ajam had never been, he navigated using a Waze-like app on his smartphone. He ran through the hospital listening to the app’s directions and watching the map as it tracked his location, down to about 3 feet, to guide him through the labyrin…

The Office of Tomorrow

WeWork Hits the Brakes in New York, London After IPO Debacle

WeWork’s days of breakneck expansion are over, at least for now. New leases by the flexible office firm nosedived in New York and London, its top two markets, in the final quarter of last year, CoStar Group Inc. data show. It signed just 64,000 square feet (5,946 square meters) of space in Manhattan, the lowest in more than five years, while the 49,000 square feet in London was the least since the U.K.’s Brexit vote in the second quarter of 2016.

Triplemint triples down on its predictive analytics

In a recent episode of “Million Dollar Listing New York,” the show’s newest cast member, Tyler Whitman, beat out celebrity broker Ryan Serhant on a listing. “I’m just super-excited that Bubblemint gum finally has their first listing,” said Serhant, flubbing the name of Whitman’s brokerage, Triplemint, and shrugging off the loss. How staged the scene was is anyone’s guess, but Serhant’s confusion rings true. Outside of some small circles in the proptech and residential brokerage worlds, Triplemin…