Curated daily by our industry experts. Stay informed on how tech is shaping the real estate industry with these important headlines.
COMMERCIAL OBSERVER
Sonder, a startup on the rise, is expanding in New York. The Montreal-based company turns apartments into short-term hotel rooms, and is taking advantage of an Airbnb-sized hole in the market. While Airbnb had unleashed the world’s appetite for vacation rentals, it couldn’t deliver on the predictable quality of a hotel, and has been entangled in legal challenges in New York from inception….
THE REAL ESTATE INNOVATORS
Elie Finegold is a Venture Advisor and Entrepreneur in Residence at MetaProp NYC. Elie is an experienced Entrepreneur, Corporate Strategist, and Senior Executive at the intersection of Real Estate and Technology. Advisor to both startups/growth companies and Venture Capital/Private Equity firms. Former head of Global Innovation at CBRE (NYSE:CBRE), founding President of Island Global Yachting and founding partner at Island Capital Group, Chief Innovation Officer at Insignia Financial Group (N…
TECHCRUNCH
The growth of Airbnb — and likewise other platforms like Booking.com, VRBO and HomeAway for listing and renting short-term accommodation in private homes — has spawned an ecosystem of other businesses and services, from those who make money renting their homes, to cleaning companies that make properties “Airbnb-ready,” to those who help design listings that will get more clicks. Airbnb has seen some wild success so far, but it turns out that being a part of that ecosystem can be a lucrative busi…
BISNOW
While building a co-living company to house young professionals in a community-focused setting, Common CEO Brad Hargreaves realized that as a young parent in New York City, there wasn’t anybody trying to do the same for people like him. While talking with Tishman Speyer Director of Acquisitions Jeffrey Mandel about possible development deals between Common and the development giant, Hargreaves brought up the issue, and the kernel of an idea he had to address it.
BLOOMBERG
The shopping mall in lower Manhattan’s Brookfield Place has found a tenant to take over the shuttered Saks Fifth Avenue women’s store — and it’s not a retailer. Convene, a New York-based company that provides flexible meeting and working space, signed a 10-year lease for 73,000 square feet (6,800 square meters) — most of the former Saks spot — and plans to convert it into a venue for conferences, corporate meetings and cultural gatherings. That means about a quarter of the 300,000-square-f…
BUILDING VENTURES
Building Ventures is pleased to announce that Heather Widman has joined the firm as a Principal. Adding Heather to the team will help Building Ventures fulfill our mission to identify, mentor and help build some of the most impactful startups across the Construction and Real Estate technology landscape.
VENTURE BEAT
Once, there was a single VR headset. Today there are quite a few, and within months, there will certainly be too many in the marketplace for most people to count. Consumers are about to enter the most confusing time in VR’s history. There are already four tiers of decidedly different devices to choose from, and throughout the spring, there will be new entries in every category, at every price point. None is guaranteed to be successful — in fact, there’s a good chance that some will be utter f…
REUTERS
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Walmart Inc. Chief Technology Officer Jeremy King is leaving the company, according to an internal company memo, even as the retailer races to transform its e-commerce business and close the gap with rival Amazon.com Inc. King, who joined the company in 2011, led a revamp of Walmart’s U.S. e-commerce technology platform by making it faster, more competitive and customer-friendly, all of which have been key to the retailer’s fight against its e-commerce rivals.
THE REAL DEAL
“Hey, Agent X, schedule an open house.” Realogy has debuted a new set of technology tools for agents, including a voice-activated artificial intelligence assistant called “Agent X” that will run through Amazon’s Alexa platform, and a “Social Ad Engine” designed in collaboration with Facebook, according to reporting from Inman. “We’re going to shape the future of the real estate industry we’ve chosen to be a part of,” Realogy’s CEO Ryan Schneider told employees and agents at the company’s R…
KAARTA
Mobile mapping and localization technology rapidly transforms the real world into 3D digital twins PITTSBURGH, PA, March 21, 2019 – Kaarta, Inc., the innovator of real-time mobile 3D reality capture, announced today that it has raised US$6.5 million to accelerate the growth of its mobile mapping and localization technology. Kaarta’s innovative technology enables built environment, geospatial, and autonomous robotics professionals to map and model indoor and outdoor spaces up to 10x faster and…
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