Second Century Ventures Launches REach® Commercial Accelerator

WASHINGTON (February 19, 2019) — Second Century Ventures, the National Association of Realtors®’ strategic investment arm, has launched REach® Commercial, its first commercial real estate technology accelerator. Applications for the 2019 REach® Commercial class will be accepted through March 31, 2019, at narreach.com/apply. “Expanding the REach® accelerator program will further NAR’s vision outlined last summer at the iOi conference in San Francisco, creating a dynamic, competitive real estat…

CREtech Announces Appointment Of Serial Tech Founder Ash Zandieh As Chief Intelligence Officer

Fast growing event, data and research platform devoted to commercial real estate technology continues to scale with strategic new hire New York, NY (February 20, 2019) — CREtech (cretech.com), the largest event, data and content platform covering the commercial real estate tech industry, is pleased to welcome RE:Tech Founder and industry veteran Ashkán Zandieh to the growing CREtech team as Chief Intelligence Officer. Zandieh, a former top commercial real estate broker at ABS Partners Real …

CREtech Announces New “CREtech Talk” Session On Scaling Your Business By JLL Spark Exec at Los Angeles Conference on March 27-28

JLL’s Andrea Jang Will Present At The Largest Conference In Commercial Real Estate Tech Sector On The West Coast In 2019 New York, NY (February 19, 2019) — CREtech (cretech.com), the largest event, data and content platform covering the commercial real estate tech industry, announced a new session to be presented by Andrea Jang, Head of Growth, Americas, JLL Spark.  The session, “CREtech Talks: How to Scale, Levering a Strategic VC” will be available to all attendees of the upcoming conference…

SquareFoot Acquires PivotDesk to Expand Product Offerings for Tenants

New York, NY — February 19, 2019 — SquareFoot (www.squarefoot.com), a commercial real estate technology company, today announced the acquisition of PivotDesk (www.pivotdesk.com), a flexible office space marketplace. PivotDesk will operate as a subsidiary of SquareFoot. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. Founded in 2012 with a mission to improve commercial real estate leasing through transparency and efficiency, SquareFoot combines proprietary technology and an experienced bro…

Matt Harris’s Workplace 2.0

Matt Harris, Envoy’s head of workplace technology, believes in a smart office. He works to build spaces that use technology to support the company’s 115 employees, adding, “We want offices that understand and know you, that understand your preferences.” Envoy operates with a mission that “puts people first” through the integration of efficient tech tools in the workplace to streamline business practices. The company first made its name by reimagining front lobby systems, which replaced busine…

You don’t have to rip out your old card reader system – Openpath now works with what you’ve got!

This is a big deal – you don’t have to rip out your old Access Control System to use Openpath! You can add mobile credentials and cloud based controls to your old system now that Openpath is backwards compatible. So many people we talk to are frustrated with their difficult old systems, but don’t want to force a change…instead they want to just upgrade what they have. There are a whole bunch of reasons why you don’t want to disrupt your current users’ experience – maybe you have users dependin…

Investor momentum builds for construction tech

Although it’s not the sexiest of industries, the hefty construction sector in 2018 attracted not only the attention but, more importantly, the dollars of investors. Historically, the multi-trillion-dollar sector has been slow to adopt new technologies, as builders rely on a variety of disparate systems to manage projects, traditional building methods to construct homes and non-smart materials. But a wave of startups is looking to capitalize on opportunities within the sector. Companies that …

Travis Kalanick sets sights on Europe, Asia with new venture

Travis Kalanick is looking to broaden his new real estate venture around the globe. Kalanick, the former Uber CEO who is now head of Los Angeles-based City Storage Systems, has been working to expand operations into Asia and Europe, according to a report by the Financial Times, which cited people with knowledge of Kalanick’s plans. City Storage is also the parent company of CloudKitchens, which provides kitchen space to delivery-only restaurants. In 2017, Kalanick resigned as Uber’s CEO in…

Murdoch ‘moves’ on Zillow

“What the hell does Zillow mean?”

It was 2015, and the bull-headed media mogul Rupert Murdoch was speaking at a gathering of 4,000 real estate agents in Midtown Manhattan. “We know what ‘realtor’ means,” he said.

Murdoch had made a career out of big-game hunting, and this time his target was Zillow. Ever since buying StreetEasy in 2012, the $7.5 billion real estate giant had reigned over New York’s listings market.

Bringing a green edge to office design

Many businesses across the UK are moving beyond merely placing recycling bins in kitchens and putting up notices asking people to print fewer documents as part of their green thinking in the workplace initiatives. As companies pay greater attention to their own environmental footprint, they’re taking a closer interest in how their interior design and internal business practices can better support their external sustainability commitments and help to eliminate waste. Furnishing new office s…