In Its Race To Add Capabilities, WeWork Acquires Managed By Q

Coworking giant WeWork, a division of The We Company, has acquired workplace management platform Managed by Q, which provides companies a single platform to manage various workplace tasks, such as finding receptionists or IT support staff.

WeWork didn't say how much it paid for Managed by Q, which was founded in 2014. The New York-based company was valued at $249M in a financing round early this year, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Managed by Q's main client base is midsize and larger companies. The company, which operates in New York as well as Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Silicon Valley, is looking to expand into other markets.

In recent years, Managed by Q has made a number of acquisitions, including the purchase of NVS, an office space planning and project management service, and Hivy, which lets employees tell office managers what they need, TechCrunch reports.

The Managed by Q deal represents the latest move by The We Company, which lost nearly $2B last year, into a service business that doesn't depend on the company's original model of leasing space and then subleasing it as coworking space.

The thinking is that a more diversified company would be better able to withstand an economic downturn that puts a crimp in demand for coworking space.

Many of WeWork's recent acquisitions have been in the tech space, such as its purchase of Euclid, a San Francisco-based software company specializing in gathering data on people as they move through physical space. (The technology raises privacy concerns.)

During the last few years, WeWork has also acquired Case, which makes architectural modeling software; Welkio, an office sign-in system; Fieldlens, a communication platform for construction sites; and a number of other software companies.