Yardi Moves To Consolidate Online Coworking Platforms With 2 Acquisitions
Yardi Systems is expanding its coworking holdings with two acquisitions to bolster its online desk booking presence.
The California-based real estate technology firm acquired Deskpass and Hubble, two platforms that allow customers to book individual desks, offices or conference rooms on demand. The mergers add to Yardi’s coworking holdings, which include online marketplace CoworkingCafe and a 60% stake in WeWork.
The deals are also the second and third coworking acquisitions announced in the last two days, following CBRE’s $400M investment in Industrious to take over the company at an $800M valuation.
"We are excited to build a global infrastructure to connect office users with space from the best office owners and coworking operators," Yardi Global Solutions President Robert Teel said in a statement. "The Deskpass and Hubble teams bring a wealth of customer and industry knowledge about flexible marketplaces to help us service this evolving customer need."
Hubble, founded in 2014, is a UK-based platform that partners with coworking operators to market their desks and meeting spaces in a single online marketplace. Chicago-based Deskpass offers a similar service in 260 cities across 22 countries.
The two services are similar to what is offered by Yardi’s own CoworkingCafe website, which has over 21,000 locations listed and integrates with the firm’s Yardi Kube, a coworking management platform.
The purchase price for Hubble and Deskpass were not disclosed.
Yardi was founded by Anant Yardi in Santa Barbara in 1984 as a property management platform. Under Yardi, who remains CEO, the firm grew in market share before branching out into other service lines.
It launched the CommercialEdge property listing site in 2021 and in the following year released RentCafe CRM IQ, which helps multifamily property managers shepherd prospective tenants through the application process.
The private, venture capital-backed firm expanded beyond software in August, when it announced a $450M plan to inject capital into WeWork to propel the firm out of bankruptcy.
The deal has made Yardi a majority owner of the coworking brand, which has returned to growth mode after a contentious bankruptcy that led to more than 150 locations closing their doors.
Coworking continues to grow despite swirling questions about the future of office space. Nearly 5M SF of new coworking space opened in the U.S. during the third quarter, bringing the sector’s total footprint to 133M SF, according to CoworkingCafe.