Proptech Company HqO Raises $50M To Focus On M&A
HqO is the latest proptech analytics startup to raise funding to accelerate growth. On Wednesday, the company announced it garnered over $50M in Series D funding, led by Koch Industries' investment arm.
Other participants in this latest round of funding included The Related Cos., Insight Partners and Accomplice. To date, the company has raised over $200M from investors such as Suffolk Technologies, PruVen Capital and Allegion Ventures.
HqO’s Real Estate Experience platform is used to increase tenant and employee retention, net operating income and efficiency by analyzing a space's health and performance and offering tools for management.
With the investment, HqO is setting its sights on expansion, seeking to execute a merger and acquisition strategy that will lead the company to becoming a full-service platform.
"There's too many proptech solutions chasing too few problems," co-founder and CEO Chase Garabino told Commercial Observer. "And we have a lot of good entrepreneurs who have created really good features, but they're not full products."
The startup acquired Leesman, an England-based business intelligence company that uses data to drive workplace solutions, last June. The previous year, it acquired Office App, an engagement platform for office workers.
Companies offering artificial intelligence solutions have been able to bypass the market's downturn sparked by high interest rates and secure substantial backing. While the beginning of the year was dismal for investment compared to last year, things turned around in the second quarter, and startups seeking investment have more reason to be optimistic they can land dollars. Proptech secured $1.8B in investment in Q3, an 11% increase from the $1.6B raised in Q1, according to Center for Real Estate Technology & Innovation figures reported by CO.
VC firm MetaProp reported last month that investor confidence in proptech rose to 6.1 on a scale of 1 to 10 at midyear, up from 5.4 at the end of 2022.
One of HqO's investors, Suffolk Technologies, raised $110M this year to invest in proptech startups.
AI has been a big winner in the resurgence of investment. Last month, AI proptech platform Site Technologies raised $10M in a funding round led by Prologis Ventures, and JLL Spark led a $10M funding round for generative AI offering Qbiq. EliseAI raised $35M in June.
Because of the rising interest in proptech startups, the sector could be part of an initial public offering reawakening in 2024, which is more likely with more funding dollars.
