Knotel In Talks For Kuwait-Backed Funding Round Valuing Firm At $1.5B

Flexible office startup Knotel has unabashedly claimed it plans to be “bigger than WeWork” by next year, and its latest funding round is expected to position it as the second office space “unicorn.” Wafra, a New York firm backed by the government of Kuwait, is in talks to lead a funding round that would value Knotel at around $1.5B, the Wall Street Journal reports. Knotel has already taken in $160M in funding, and it is unclear how much Wafra or other investors in the round would spend for th…

Tishman Speyer rolls out its co-working business in LA and Boston

As one of the country’s largest commercial landlords, Tishman Speyer is doubling down on its co-working model, putting it in direct competition with established players like WeWork and Knotel. The commercial landlord, which has 165 million square feet across 400 buildings, said Monday that it has opened locations for its co-working business, Studio, in Boston and Los Angeles this month. And the company has plans to open more in New York, as well as enter markets such as Washington DC, Chicago…

CREtech and ICSC Announce Speakers and Agenda for ICSC’S Innovation Exchange at RECon 2019

CREtech and ICSC announce hand-curated programming from the top industry thought leaders New York, NY (May 7, 2019) — CREtech (CREtech.com), the largest event, data and content platform covering the commercial real estate tech industry, has once again partnered with the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) to organize and host their “Innovation Exchange” at RECon, the largest global gathering of retail real estate professionals. RECon will be held at the Las Vegas Convention Center …

EVOLVELAB’S BILL ALLEN ON HOW AI + MACHINE LEARNING WILL CHANGE CONSTRUCTION

Bill Allen is CEO, and President of EvolveLAB, Disrupt Repeat, and On Point Scans. These firms synergistically help architects, engineers, and contractors optimize the built environment. He has over 14 years of experience managing technology for buildings in the AEC industry. Allen has worked with the latest technology for the AEC industry for over a decade. He gives us an ear into his thoughts on why startups are poised to succeed in this field right now, how AI and machine learning can chan…

Airbnb-backed OYO moves into Europe, buys Leisure Group from Axel Springer for $415M

OYO, the fast-growing budget hotel startup out of India that’s backed by Airbnb, SoftBank, Grab and Didi, has made an acquisition to expand its footprint into Europe, specifically around self-catering home rentals. The company has picked up @Leisure Group from Axel Springer for about $415 million (€369.5 million). Axel Springer had a 51 percent share of the company and said it would be receiving €180 million in the deal, including the repayment of a shareholder loan of around €60 million, and a…

Big Tech Looking for Retail Spaces

Consumers have moved more and more towards online shopping, and physical retail has taken a hit. As a result, retailers have had to reinvent themselves to compete with these online retailers, who have much lower overhead expenses. For example, a brick and mortar retailer, Best Buy, has matched prices with Amazon and has retooled their physical locations to be showrooms and online order pickup locations. These changes have allowed Best Buy to offer an experience with their products that can’t…

How Was This Building Able To Generate $14M From 400 Crowdfunding Investors In 1 Night?

One development in Milwaukee just proved how powerful crowdfunding can be for commercial real estate — when the right project comes along. This week, J. Jeffers & Co. posted a request for equity investment on the platform CrowdStreet for The Huron, an 11-story, new construction office building in Downtown Milwaukee’s Third Ward. Investors poured in $10M over the course of J. Jeffers’ 80-minute webinar breaking down the investment, and by the next morning had brought the total up to $14M; …

Security lapse exposed a Chinese smart city surveillance system

Smart cities are designed to make life easier for their residents: better traffic management by clearing routes, making sure the public transport is running on time and having cameras keeping a watchful eye from above.

But what happens when that data leaks? One such database was open for weeks for anyone to look inside.

How Does WeWork Make Money?

WeWork is one of the world’s most valuable startups, though just how its business works is widely misunderstood. We look at how WeWork makes money, where it spends it, and how its flywheel operates. On one level, the answer to the question “How does WeWork make money?” is, “It doesn’t — yet.” The 9-year-old co-working company is notoriously unprofitable, reporting $1.9B in losses on $1.8B in revenue in 2018. …

Amazon dismisses idea automation will eliminate all its warehouse jobs soon

BALTIMORE (Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc dismissed the idea of running a fully automated warehouse in the near future, citing the superior cognitive ability of humans and limitations of current technology. Scott Anderson, director of Amazon Robotics Fulfillment, said technology is at least 10 years away from fully automating the processing of a single order picked by a worker inside a warehouse. There is a misperception that Amazon will run fully automated warehouses soon, Anderson said during…