🎉 Coworking celebrations.
🙋♀️ Near-bankrupt network begins comeback with NYC relaunch.
The Wing have begun reopening locations after their recent last-min funding secured from IWG.
With locations in SoHo, Bryant Park and Flatiron fully reopened, the network plans to begin programming and reopening nationwide shortly too.
📰 Coworking updates.
🇦🇺 Call to form an Australian alliance of flex spaces.
Brad Krauskopf from Hub Australia (alongside other local colleagues) put out a call to form an alliance of coworking and flex space operators to be called Flexible Workspace Australia.
☀️ Coworking space shares summer tips for WFH parents.
In a blog post, WorkSmart shares 4 ways parents can tame the post-lockdown chaos during the summer breaks.
From setting routines, to keeping to goals, to getting creative around childcare and working away from the busy home, this is a great example of community-facing content that all workspaces should be inspired by.
📈 Office demand has returned to Jan 2020 levels says flex broker.
Luke Appleby from Kontor shares that they’re seeing a healthy resurgence in requests for office space. What’s also interesting is that this number of leads is being achieved with a reported fraction of the resources and marketing spend as those used in Jan 2020.
⛱ Landlord opens outdoor coworking space.
Tishman Speyer has opened an outdoor coworking space in Washington DC, and made it free to use for the summer. Are you doing anything creative using outside space? If not, why not?
(Paywalled article) 👉 Read this
⏱ The average no. of hours folks cowork in a Southampton space each week.
Liam Doe shares that, on average, folks use Old Bond Store workspace is used for 12 hours per week. This is calculated across their 49 members and 83 guests who were granted access.
Are you tracking usage? And if so, is it trending upwards?
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🤝 Coworking deals & mergers.
💥 Another flex marketplace acquired.
Jonathan Wasserstrum shares the news that SquareFoot have acquired Upsuite, betting big on the fact that flex spaces are an integral part of the future of work.
Ben Wright and the team will move over and work together to fill more office space faster.
🔥 Why is proptech booming right now?
Chava Gourarie dives into a few reasons why proptech (property technology companies) boomed during the pandemic, touching on who the key investors are, what they’re investing in and why the sector (for both office and residential) is so hot right now.
💻 Coworking technology.
☕️ Hybrid work app launches without desk-booking features
Café was launched (and quickly raised a $1M seed-round) by Arthur Lorotte de Banes and Tom Nguyen to help organizations know who’s working from where and when.
What’s interesting for a remote office platform, is that they don’t offer desk booking. What will be interesting is if they decide to add that in too *cough* through something like Syncaroo *cough* or if the platform can be used as a low-tech way for coworking spaces to show/control community capacity.
💰 Huge office landlord invests into tenant experience platform co.
Lincoln Property Company, a full-service real estate firm who own and manage over 400M sqft of office space, have invested an undisclosed sum in tenant experience platform providers Equiem.
Eric Roseman, Vice President, Innovation & Technology Ventures with LPC says “we see tenant engagement and in-building technology experience critical to the future of office”, and I for one couldn’t agree more.
🌯 Workspace food ordering co raises $15M to grow group orders.
Sharebite announced a funding round to expand their group food ordering platform and service.
Having watched this space for a while and it’s poised for a huge collision with flex workspaces in urban environments… when folks return to city center offices.
😵 Only 13% of tenants feel landlords are strongly position to meet flex requirements.
Essensys commissioned a study that included perspectives from global landlords (totaling 2.5B sqft) and major corp occupiers. Concerns were raised around digital security, better utilization analytics, access to convenient booking options, touchless access and links with local restaurants.
Outside of tech, occupiers also flagged frictionless set-up and configuration as priorities alongside contract flexibility. Interestingly over half said they’d pay 20% more for flex space with tech-driven amenities.
🎙 Coworking conversations.
Stacey Vanek Smith and Darian Woods return with a “Jobs Friday” short Planet Money podcast in which they share that 559k jobs were added in May, and interestingly the no. of self-employed people in the US went up by 351k over the same period.
Jamie Russo and Zubin Canteenwalla chat about SaltBox, co-warehousing, and previous experiences working in both coworking & coliving.
Bernie Mitchell, Ivanne Poussier and David O’Coimin take a deep-dive into what accessibility can look, hear and feel like in coworking.
🙏 Thanks.
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