In Portland, Scooter Start-Ups Played Nice. Regulators Took Note.

SAN FRANCISCO — The e-scooter boom began in Santa Monica, Calif., about 16 months ago. Electric scooters, owned by start-ups looking to mimic the success of ride-hailing companies like Uber, appeared around town. The idea was simple: Use a smartphone app to rent a scooter and then leave it at the end of the ride for the next person. Soon, people in cities from San Francisco to Paris were complaining that the scooters were all over sidewalks — usually without the approval of local officials….

DC-Based Coworking Company Cove Launches New Office Concept for Businesses

In August 2016, D.C.-based nonprofit Search for Common Ground was in about 12,000 square feet at 1601 Connecticut Avenue NW and wanted to reduce its office costs and square footage. Cove—a coworking company with hot desks—offered to instead create a private “hub” for the nonprofit at one of its existing coworking locations. The hub allowed Search for Common Ground, which employees 700 people worldwide, to sublease half of its space at 1601 Connecticut Avenue NW to another tenant.

Co-living startup scores $300 million investment for housing expansion

Shared-living operators, which specialize in providing housing to low-income millennials, is a burgeoning business. New York-based companies like WeWork and Common, as well as San Jose, California-based Starcity, have each built large co-living developments in various urban neighborhoods.

Medici Living Group is another company that wants a bigger slice of the market.

Airbnb Says It Made a Profit Again in 2018

Airbnb Inc. said it made money for a second straight year, based on a common measure that excludes some expenses, as the online home-rental service prepares for an initial public offering. Airbnb said in a memo that it generated earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization in 2018. A spokesperson declined to provide an exact figure. The company exceeded financial projections for 2017, with $93 million in profit on $2.6 billion in revenue, people familiar with the matter told Blo…

The Health and Fitness Amenities Office Tenants Want

In this month’s partnership, CPE and Kingsley Associates sought to find out how tenants really feel about the health and fitness options in their offices. “We’d like a covered area for parked bicycles. Employees have complained that during the day the bicycles get very hot and easily get burned. There is no way to cool them down to be able to get on them to ride home.” —Alpharetta, Ga….

New York Sticks With Crypto, Opening Blockchain Center Amid Rout

New York isn’t giving up on the digital-ledger technology that makes Bitcoin and other tokens work even after last year’s collapse of the cryptocurrency market. The New York City Economic Development Corporation said its Blockchain Center in Manhattan will open Thursday a part of a partnership with affiliates of venture-capital fund Future\Perfect Ventures and the Global Blockchain Business Council, a trade organization. The city may also start testing the use of blockchain technology in the …

Appraisal tech startup Reggora raises $3 million in seed funding

Reggora, a Boston-based startup that claims its software can “streamline the appraisal process,” now has $3 million in its coffers to help grow it business. The company announced Monday that it raised $3 million in seed funding, which it plans to use to expand across the country and enhance its platform. Reggora is an appraisal platform that both lenders and appraisers can use. According to the company, its software “condenses and streamlines appraisals by automating traditionally manual…

Office Building Parking Space Needs The Flexibility To Become Something Else

As commuting patterns change, most office buildings will probably need less parking space. For office developers, that means the parking space they build now has to be flexible enough to become something else later. Though commuting by car is still king, according to CBRE’s U.S. & Canadian Mobility 2018 report, that paradigm is on the verge of disruption. Ride-sharing, autonomous vehicles, upgraded public transit and even an attitude shift among millennials disinclined to drive will mean …

Vision Fund to lead $700M funding round for construction startup Katerra

Masayoshi Son’s $100 billion Vision Fund is preparing another major investment in real estate tech, with plans to lead a $700 million round of financing for Katerra, the construction startup founded by former Flextronics International CEO Michael Marks. This financing round would value the four-year-old company at more than $4 billion, according to The Information. The SoftBank fund invested $865 million in Katerra last January, after which the company was valued at $3 billion….

CES 2019’s mediocre 5G demos set the stage for a confusing year

During a 5G-focused Mobile Innovation event at last year’s CES, Qualcomm President Cristiano Amon said he hoped to appear at 2019’s show with a working 5G phone on a live network. Since there were exactly zero 5G phones or networks in existence at that point, his plan sounded ambitious, but his quiet confidence made the outcome seem both inevitable and worth waiting for.