Flexspace Launches On-Demand Workspace Platform to Offer Teams Seamless Access to Third Party Collaboration Spaces
Flexspace today announced the launch of a corporate solution for hybrid-remote companies providing employees a seamlessly integrated platform to discover, book and manage flexible workspace on-demand directly from the existing workflows. The company also announced a $6 million seed investment round, led by M13, with participation from R-Squared Ventures (who led the pre-seed round), Magenta Venture Partners, and individual investors including former and current Silicon Valley executives from Uber and WeWork. The capital will be used to expand the network of operators throughout the United States, and further develop Flexspace's product for teams with technology integrations.
Flexspace co-founders Eyal Lasker and Justin Law met while in senior growth product and software engineering roles at WeWork. In 2020, the pair formed Flexspace to address the explosive need for easy access to collaborative workspaces for both scaling startups as well as established companies supporting hybrid workforces amidst blurred office lines created by the pandemic. Researchers from Stanford, the University of Chicago, and MIT have found that, today, more than one-third of all remote hours are not spent in home offices, but in "third places" such as libraries, coffee shops and co-working spaces. A recent Stanford Graduate School of Business report also noted that virtual meetings can hinder creativity and in-person meetings generate more creative ideas. Additionally, in its 2021 Global Flex Space Report, real estate services leader JLL reported flexible space will grow to 30 percent of the total office supply in the U.S.
"The issue is bigger than how to return to the office or adopt a hybrid worklife, it's akin to demand for an entirely rethought workplace experience. Committing to expensive, multi-year leases on massive office space - a static experience - has been replaced by adopting technology that offers dynamic, on-demand access to a wider variety of spaces and locations," said Eyal Lasker, Co-founder and CEO of Flexspace. "The current infrastructure is not set up to support this in real-time, so we've created a network that connects directly to the operators' inventory and seamlessly delivers it to workers from their existing workflows. Four years ago at WeWork this notion of a digitized on-demand space booking experience was considered first principles thinking. Today, we are transforming an entire industry: employers will no longer be financially confined by a set number of assets in set locations, instead they'll tap into different spaces for a variety of needs as they arise."
Flexspace provides the infrastructure to search, price, book, and process services in real-time to hybrid-remote companies and flexible space operators. The platform sits at the intersection of co-working space supply and demand: Flexspace helps real-estate owners and operators be discovered by companies so they can monetize unused inventory. Companies then gain access to off-site workspaces, giving employees the freedom to independently choose when and where to meet up with teams or book space for solo work outside their home offices.
In Q1 of 2022, Flexspace's bookings more than doubled and today it partners with operators including WeWork, Mindspace, TheYard, Nomadworks, TheMalin, and Werqwise. With this fresh capital, the company plans to further expand to metropolitan cities throughout the U.S. Monthly transactions volume has grown nearly 40% month-over-month since the beginning of the year.
The Flexspace platform provides unique insights into user behavior, specifically for their locations but also industry-wide for trends across operators. For example, collaborative spaces are typically booked 4.5 days in advance with nearly 31 percent of all Flexspace bookings occurring mid-week. Wednesdays have emerged as the most popular weekday for hybrid-remote workers to hold in-person meetings, and Tuesdays are the preferred day of the week for solo work with nearly 70 percent of Flexspace single office books taking place earlier in the week. Armed with these insights, operators are incentivized to create events and agendas around these behaviors that will attract traffic.
"Work happens anywhere and not just in the office; what employees need from a workplace is changing constantly. Space needs to be more than desks, meeting rooms and amenities," said M13's Managing Partner Karl Alomar, who was appointed to Flexspace's Board of Directors. "There is a paradigm shift - the open-office plan cramming more workers into smaller spaces to stimulate serendipitous collaboration is over. Ultimately, people want flexibility and autonomy but will still need to maintain the ability to easily connect when needed. Flexspace fulfills that need."
ABOUT FLEXSPACE
Flexspace provides companies with an easy-to-use platform that empowers their employees to discover, book, and manage on-demand workspaces with no commitment or upfront cost. Flexspace does that by providing the critical services to flexible workspace providers to fractionalize and price their unused inventory in real-time. For more information: www.flexspace.ai
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