Adam Neumann is rumored to be in command of a $1 billion real estate firm, nearly three years after he left WeWork as CEO after the company’s unsuccessful IPO attempt.
According to The New York Times, which cited anonymous sources briefed on the transaction, Andreessen Horowitz, a well-known venture capital firm best known for its early investments in Twitter and Airbnb, has invested around $350 million in Neumann’s most recent endeavor, called Flow. According to the article, the investment valued the business at more than $1 billion.
Requests for comments from representatives of Flow and Andreessen Horowitz were not immediately fulfilled.
Marc Andreessen, general partner and co-founder of the venture capital company, disclosed the investment in a blog post on Monday without providing any financial information. He also clarified why he decided to support Neumann and Flow, a residential real estate firm, despite the founder’s well-publicized fall from grace at WeWork.
In the blog post, Andreessen referred to Adam as a visionary leader who transformed commercial real estate, the second-largest asset class in the world, by adding community and brand to a sector where neither previously existed. He said, “The narrative of Adam and the story of WeWork has been carefully chronicled, studied, and fictionalized—sometimes accurately. However, the fact that only one person—Adam Neumann—has significantly altered the workplace experience and led a paradigm-shifting global firm in the process is sometimes overlooked despite the effort put into covering the narrative.
It is not immediately evident how Flow intends to change the residential housing sector. However, flow currently has a basic website with the tagline “Live life in flow” and two phrases announcing its introduction in 2023.
Andreessen promoted the new business as the long-awaited answer to the “housing crisis” facing the country. He described how the new firm will “build a system where renters obtain the benefits of owners” using a variety of jargon-filled words, such as “community-driven, experience-centric service.”
WeWork is currently valued at $4bn
WeWork experimented with gyms, a school, and housing under Neumann’s direction as it grew from elaborately perks-filled shared coworking spaces. The most recent of these initiatives, WeLive, allowed clients to rent a bed or a private room in a coliving setting with communal rooms available for yoga, ping-pong, and other activities.
WeWork had a terrible attempt to go public that was largely thwarted by IPO paperwork that exposed Neumann’s unfettered power, several possible conflicts of interest, and WeWork’s huge losses. At one point, WeWork was valued at $47 billion on the private market. Ultimately, Neumann was fired from his position as WeWork’s CEO, but he left with an exit package reportedly worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
A TV show that featured Neumann in part as the epitome of startup culture’s excesses was inspired by WeWork’s stunning first attempt to go public and meteoric ascent.
In 2021, WeWork finally went public through a special purpose acquisition company or SPAC. WeWork is currently worth $4 billion on the market.
