The Collective Signs Membership Deal With JP Morgan As Co-Living Targets Corporate World

The Collective has signed a corporate membership deal with investment bank JP Morgan at its new Canary Wharf scheme, as the nascent sector looks to tap into the business housing and hospitality market.   “Our product is always evolving in terms of the quality and the end user, and we are constantly looking at who we can open co-living up to,” The Collective Global Planning Director James Penfold said at Bisnow’s London State of the Market event. “At our building in Canary Wharf we have just done…

Commercial real estate and the changing dynamics of customer experience

A new era of technology has ensured that the contemporary customer expects real-time, on-demand services, readily available at their fingertips. As customer experience (CX) expectations grow, businesses are adopting value-over-volume and people-centric approaches to stay competitive. Within the facilities management function of the commercial real estate sector, which traditionally focused on physical assets, the spotlight has shifted to facilitating enhanced occupant experiences, instead.

Ten-X Commercial lays off nearly half its workforce

Ten-X Commercial, an online real estate transaction platform, laid off half its workforce after efforts to sell the company fell through. Close to 100 employees in offices in Texas, New York and California were given notice on Monday morning during a call with executives, according to people on the call and those familiar with the matter. Thomas H. Lee Partners, the private equity firm that owns Ten-X Commercial, has been trying to sell the company since the start of the year. CoStar Group had b…

Secretive energy startup backed by Bill Gates achieves solar breakthrough

A secretive startup backed by Bill Gates has achieved a solar breakthrough aimed at saving the planet. Heliogen, a clean energy company that emerged from stealth mode on Tuesday, said it has discovered a way to use artificial intelligence and a field of mirrors to reflect so much sunlight that it generates extreme heat above 1,000 degrees Celsius. Essentially, Heliogen created a solar oven — one capable of reaching temperatures that are roughly a quarter of what you’d find on the surface of th…

Beyond The Bio: 16 Questions With Lyric Co-Founder And President Joe Fraiman

Joe Fraiman is the president and co-founder of Lyric, a real estate and hospitality startup that provides lodging to business travelers through partnerships with multifamily developers. Fraiman founded Lyric in 2014 with CEO Andrew Kitchell. In April, the company announced a Series B round of $160M led by Airbnb, RXR Realty and Tishman Speyer, bringing its total funding to about $180M. The son and grandson of real estate entrepreneurs, Fraiman began in software before joining the Ray Dalio-found…

It’s Not the Coworking Model That’s the Disruptor

Here are two interesting fun facts to chew over, ripped from the pages of a recent 1,000-worker survey sponsored by Hana, the flex-space provider launched last year by CBRE: Fun Fact #1: “Among professionals, 70% said the flexibility to work remotely is a must-have when considering a new job.” Fun Fact #2: Eighty-three percent of those responding to the survey “say they enjoy going to the office to accomplish work-related goals.” What does this boil down to? “A lot of people think flexible space…

Real-Estate Brokerage Compass Buys AI Startup Detectica

Bungalow Raises $47 Million To Prove Co-Living Is Not The Next Co-Working

It should have been a hard sell. Public markets had received Uber and Lyft’s IPOs poorly in the spring given the services’ lack of profitability. By fall, WeWork’s IPO was collapsing as it continued to burn money on its business of leasing properties and turning them into co-working spaces. But Bungalow’s cofounder and CEO Andrew Collins believed his co-living business—which uses a similar model of subdividing homes and renting out the rooms—was different. Private market investors, at the very l…

Paris-based Luko raises €20 million Series A funding to protect and insure every European home

Luko, the Paris-based home insurance startup, announced today that it has raised a €20 million Series A led by the VC firm Accel, with participation from Founders Fund and Speedinvest. The fresh capital will be used to start the international expansion soon. Home insurance is a €100 billion industry in Europe, but its opaque terms and conditions, multi-stage and elongated processes and ‘guilty before proven innocent’ approach to claims have eroded consumers’ trust. On average, after the experien…

Eden Announces $25M Series B Led By Reshape

Eden, the leading workplace management platform that makes it easier for fast growing, innovative companies to run and scale their offices, today announced a $25 million Series B funding round led by Reshape. The raise succeeds a momentous year in Eden’s growth, in which the company onboarded its 2,000th service provider and brought its platform transaction volume past the $50 million mark. This funding is rounded out by some of the most notable names in commercial real estate and venture capita…