Curated daily by our industry experts. Stay informed on how tech is shaping the real estate industry with these important headlines.
THE REAL DEAL
It’s a buyer’s market in Miami, and a new startup wants to capitalize on the glut of condos on the market. New York City-based Compound, led by CEO Janine Yorio, is under contract to purchase a unit at Brickell City Centre, and will open up a vehicle for accredited investors to buy shares. Using the same model, the investment firm hopes to buy hundreds of condos that it will lease to renters.
CRUNCHBASE
There’s a lot of great companies being built outside of Silicon Valley. And Steve Case’s Revolution is eager to help find, and back, them. Today, Revolution announced the close of its second Rise of the Rest Seed Fund, amounting to $150 million. The inaugural fund of the same amount closed in late 2017, and has backed close to 130 companies in nearly 70 cities across 32 states plus D.C. and Puerto Rico. (To read a feature I wrote on Revolution/Rise of the Rest earlier this year, head here….
DEZEEN
California firms Brooks + Scarpa and Plant Prefab have unveiled a low-cost housing concept for fallow urban sites, which comprise prefabricated, modular units that can be arranged in various configurations. Envisioned for vacant or underutilised lots, the Nest LivingHomes system was created in response to the dramatic rise in housing costs and homelessness in Los Angeles and other US cities. The project was conceived by LA architecture studio Brooks + Scarpa in collaboration with Plant Pre…
WSJ
New York City companies plan to increase hiring of tech talent next year, especially workers with cybersecurity expertise, a survey of executives found. Eighty-five percent of respondents said they intend to increase tech hiring in 2020, with more than half planning to boost their tech hires by 20% or more compared with this year. Executives expressed confidence in New York City’s talent pool, with 87% saying they are confident they will be able to find employees with the tech skills their …
BLOOMBERG
SoftBank Group Corp. earned only its second Hold rating on Friday after a Jefferies analyst downgraded the Japanese conglomerate for engineering WeWork’s $9.5 billion rescue package. Analysts covering SoftBank Group Corp. have been nearly unanimous in recommending investors to buy shares in Masayoshi Son’s company. That’s even as it faced billions of dollars in writedowns from a botched initial public offering by WeWork and a sharp decline in shares of Uber Technologies Inc. Now Son’s decisio…
NATIONAL REAL ESTATE INVESTOR
The NYU School of Professional Studies Schack Institute of Real Estate is recognized globally as one of the world’s leading centers of real estate and urban research and industry engagement. In August, the institute also announced its plan to open the NYU Institute for Cities and Real Estate in Emerging Markets in Shanghai. The new academic institute will have a research focus on real estate in China and emerging markets. NREI recently talked with real estate economist Sam Chandan, the Larry &am…
TECHCRUNCH
Ben Horowitz, the co-founder of the venture firm Andreessen Horowitz, has a new book coming out this coming Monday titled “What You Do Is Who You Are,” which takes a look at how to create “culture” at a company. It’s a word that’s thrown around a lot but that’s very hard to grasp, let alone implement in a sustainable way. Horowitz learned firsthand as a CEO how elusive it can be when he took stock of his company, only to discover it was made up of “screamers who intimidated their people,” othe…
WSJ
Flying robots that deliver packages to people’s doorsteps are no longer science fiction. Companies including Amazon.com Inc., AMZN -1.09% Alphabet Inc. GOOG 0.33% ’s Wing and Uber Technologies Inc. UBER -1.71% are starting the most advanced trials of drone delivery in U.S. history. While commercial drone delivery faces many hurdles, government-approved tests by the tech giants will mark the first time consumers in parts of the country experience the technology. Wing this month started tests i…
CAMPAIGN LIVE
Amazon is demonstrating how to create a smart home using Alexa-enabled gadgets in a London pop-up. The Westfield London activation, which runs until 2 November, features seven rooms. Guests can walk through the spaces and interact with technology from brand partners Drayton, Fitbit, Kutchenhaus, Mercedes-Benz, Omron, Osmo and Philips Hue. A Fitbit voice-activated art installation featuring the new Versa 2 watch is at the heart of the experience, with the other rooms clustered around it.
TECHCRUNCH
StepLadder, another London-based startup aiming to help so-called “generation rent” get onto the housing ladder, has raised £1.5 million in seed funding. Backing the round is Spanish banking giant BBVA and fintech VC Anthemis via the London-based venture studio on which the pair have partnered. Early investor Seedcamp also followed on, in addition to unnamed angel investors. StepLadder says it will use the new capital and support provided by BBVA/Anthemis to further develop its “collaborat…
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