Curated daily by our industry experts. Stay informed on how tech is shaping the real estate industry with these important headlines.
THEREALDEAL
Breather, an on-demand workspace company, fired at least 10 percent of its staff Thursday. The Montreal-based firm, which provides office space across 10 different cities and has more than 100 employees, laid off at least 16 staffers, The Real Deal has learned. In a post on LinkedIn, Breather’s director of research, Anja Jamrozik Otto shared that she and others were leaving the company.
CRETECH
November marked the seventh consecutive billion-dollar funding month for the global real estate tech (proptech) venture capital industry. 46 percent of all investments went to residential real estate tech companies, while 36 percent went to commercial real estate tech companies. In terms of location, North America represented 63 percent of all venture capital activity, while 66 percent of all companies in North America were from California. Download this months CREtech Monthly Funding Recap…
SMARTCITIESWORLD
The winners of the annual Amazon Web Services (AWS) City on a Cloud Innovation Challenge were announced this week at the re:Invent 2019 event. The sixth annual contest includes categories for constituent services, solving persistent problems, sustainability and equity, powered by AWS, dream big and public datasets. The competition received more than 100 nominee use cases around how AWS customers are using the cloud to innovate and improve quality of life for citizens. Winners will be awarded up …
GLOBEST
Smart technology. Green space. Sustainability. For years, apartment owners have been in search of the ideal mix of amenities and building features to attract the best renters. In return, they have been met with an avalanche of suggestions, some of which have hit the mark and others washing out. For example, while virtual tours of apartments have been heavily marketed by vendors as the next big thing, research has found that the majority of renters still prefer an in-person tour with a community …
THEREALDEAL
As tension with Zillow builds over Hamptons real estate listings, some residential firms are launching their own consumer-facing portal. The group, dubbed the Hamptons Real Estate Association, plans for HamptonsRE.com to go live Thursday after several months of behind-the-scenes work, sources told The Real Deal. The nascent association was formed earlier this year and includes the Corcoran Group, Sotheby’s International Realty, Saunders & Associates, Brown Harris Stevens and Halstead….
GLOBEST
RentRedi, a real estate technology startup offering web and mobile applications for landlords and tenants to manage the rental experience, has closed a $1.4 million fundraising round to undergird its growth as it aims at simplifying rental processes nationwide. Venture capital firm TIA Ventures lead the fundraising round that included seed funding and other strategic investors. RentRedi plans to use the capital to launch new tech offerings and onboard thousands of additional landlords to its pla…
BISNOW
Retailer and shopping center survival these days increasingly hinges on how companies use PropTech to make the right leasing and investment decisions. “In the U.S. we are over-retailed compared to anywhere else in the first world,” said Alan McKeon, CEO of location-based data analytics company Alexander Babbage. “We have more square footage than anywhere else, so people will talk about a retail shakeout. … I believe that data or tech is the competitive differentiator that allows the winners to…
YOUTUBE
A timely, roundtable discussion that examines the most significant moments in the global real estate and VC industries in 2019 and provides a look at some of the most interesting developments to come in 2020. Listen in on the conversation featuring Fifth Wall Co-Founders Brendan Wallace and Brad Greiwe, alongside colleagues Vik Chawla (Principal, Real Estate Tech Investment team) and Kevin Campos (Principal, Retail Investment team). …
SMARTCITIESDIVE
With Apple’s recent announcement that it is committing $2.5 billion to affordable housing, matching the combined pledges of Facebook, Google and Microsoft, the ongoing issue of insufficient and inadequate housing is cast center stage. California’s Bay Area is in perhaps a more deeply etched predicament than many other regions in the U.S., with a “low-income” designation applied to a family of four making $117,000 a year. The state of California has more than 134,000 homeless people, and in San F…
VENTUREBEAT
Accel Robotics, one of a growing number of AI startups that’s setting out to enable automated cashierless stores, has raised $30 million in a series A round of funding led by SoftBank, with participation from New Ground Ventures, Toyo Kanetsu Corporate Venture Investment Partnership, and RevTech Ventures. Founded out of San Diego in 2015, Accel Robotics is developing the AI and computer vision smarts needed for checkout-free stores, which are designed to make queuing a thing of the past and will…
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