Dive Brief:
- HqO raised over $50 million in Series D funding to continue pushing its acquisition strategy and scale its product offerings, according to an Oct. 18 release.
- The funding, led by Koch Real Estate Investments, brings the company’s total funding to $200 million.
- HqO says its real estate experience platform, or REX, is now used by over 350,000 users across 700 properties and provides operators with insights from more than 1.7 million employees from over 8,000 workplaces.
Dive Insight:
Rising demands from employees, the return-to-work and a flight-to-quality commercial space have been steadily leading facilities managers and building operators to seek insights related to occupancy and experience in order to keep and attract tenants.
Through its platform and this funding round, HqO seeks to capitalize on these needs and provide managers with “a single source of truth for a property,” so they can assess the health and performance of a customer’s experience within a building. The company says its platform is proven to boost tenant and employee retention while increasing net operating income and driving operating cost efficiencies.
“The world has dramatically changed over the last few years, especially the way we work, live, and interact with our surroundings. In this environment of digital disruption, data, technology, and a focus on the customer are not just options; they’re mission-critical to compete,” Chase Garbarino, co-founder and CEO at HqO, said in the release.
The company provides these insights through its recently released Intelligence suite, which provides property-specific information for owners and operators. Specific software includes REX Assessment, which quantifies employee workstyles, preferences and satisfaction with a physical space, and REX Score, or quantified values of how customers’ experience a property which HqO says directly correlates to how likely a property is to achieve high occupancy and generate revenue.
In order to leverage the large amount of client data it has and continues to gather, HqO’s Intelligence suite also includes the REX Index, a global benchmarking tool for tenant experience, which the company says ranks landlords and tenants based on REX Scores. The platform also hosts a marketplace, which gives its customers access to amenity partners to help improve their tenant experiences.
In addition to Koch, the funding round also had participation from existing investors and commercial real estate firms, including Accomplice, Insight Partners, as well as Related, which is also a client of HqO.
Additional real estate clients include Vornado Realty Trust, Nuveen, Jamestown L.P., J.P. Morgan Asset Management, Hines and LaSalle. Garbarino said that moving forward, the HqO aims to double down on its commitment to real estate and to help “create spaces that truly serve the evolving needs of those who use them.”
The company also won a 2023 PropTech Breakthrough Award this year, taking home the prize for best real estate analytics platform.
