WeWork cofounder Adam Neumann attempts a new adventure. Flow is the name of the new company with which Neumann tries to redeem three years after leaving WeWork. Flow aims to transform the US rental housing market.
While the startup’s intentions are still unclear, it is believed to focus on creating community-led, branded housing units, the New York Times reports. Startup Flow comes three years after the release of Neumann by WeWork and six years after the launch of its short rental business called WeLive. Its website currently features only a simple home page with the words “Live Life in Flow” and a launch date of 2023. However, it was revealed that Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (A16z) has invested approximately 350 million dollars in the company.
Andreessen suggested that Flow could help transform “the entire value chain, from the way buildings are purchased and owned to the way residents interact with their buildings to the way value is distributed among stakeholders. ” Andreessen hinted that Flow is responding to the nation’s “housing crisis” and the “changing dynamics” of its residential real estate assets, exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic. In a world where limited access to home ownership continues to be a driving force behind inequality and anxiety, giving renters a sense of security, community and authentic ownership has transformative power for our society “, Andreessen said. “When you take care of people in their homes and give them a sense of physical and financial security, you empower them to do more and build things. Solving this problem is fundamental to increase the opportunities for everyone ”. As reported by Esquire in the past, Neumann spent much of his years inactive after the WeWork crisis buying property. He has amassed $ 90 million in residences in New York and California, and it is reported that in 2022 he owns nearly 4,000 affordable apartments worldwide worth a total of $ 1 billion. Neumann isn’t the first tech entrepreneur to switch to real estate. In the past he told the Washington Post that he would become “the world‘s first trillionaire”.