Predictions of a working lifetime spent on Zoom meetings in yoga pants and not commuting to the office may be premature, at least according to HelloOffice and its investors. Wednesday the company announced a $20 million Series A round of financing to fund the growth of the technology-powered commercial real estate brokerage.
Justin Bedecarre is the CEO of HelloOffice.
The company, which started in San Francisco in 2016 and expanded to Los Angeles last year, has raised a total of $27 million and now plans to expand to other markets. It's betting tech startups will still want to rent office space and that offices will need to be bigger, partly because workers will need to be more spread out and workplace will be more focused on gathering people together, rather than merely seating them behind desks.
"Offices are really going to be built around what they're meant to be built around, which is collaboration," said Justin Bedecarre, CEO of HelloOffice. "In the short term, square footage per person is going to go way up."
Point 72 Ventures led the investment round with participation from existing investors Initialized Capital, Founders Fund, SaaStr, House Fund, and Jake Gibson.
"We are focused on creating new product offerings to help companies find their optimal workplace solution and, in many cases, work with companies transitioning to hybrid workplaces," Bedecarre said.
Nearly half of employees would like to keep working from home and more than 45% say their employers are actively considering or at least open to that option, according to an April survey of more than 1200 workers by getAbstract, an online business library. But many jobs cannot be entirely done at home. A recent study by the University of Chicago found only a third of work could be remote, though many have been surprised at how productive remote workers have been during the pandemic.
"Everybody's getting used to the work at home," Apple CEO Tim Cook said in April. "In some areas of the company people may be even more productive, in some other areas they're not as productive. So it's mixed, depending upon what the roles are."
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Snap’s parental controls.
Courtesy of Watchful.
Snapchat is planning to introduce Family Center, which would allow parents to see who their children are friends with on the app and who they’ve messaged within the last seven days, according to screenshots provided by Watchful, a product intelligence company. Parents would also be able help their kids report abuse or harassment.
The parental controls are still subject to change before finally launching publicly, as the Family Center screenshots—which were first reported by TechCrunch—reflect features that are still under development.
Santa Monica-based Snap and other social media giants have faced mounting criticism for not doing more to protect their younger users—some of whom have been bullied, sold deadly drugs and sexually exploited on their platforms. State attorneys general have urged Snap and Culver City-based TikTok to strengthen their parental controls, with both companies’ apps especially popular among teens.
A Snap spokesperson declined to comment on Friday. Previously, Snap representatives have told dot.LA that the company is developing tools that will provide parents with more insight into how their children are engaging on Snapchat and allow them to report troubling content.
Yet Snap’s approach to parental controls could still give teens some privacy, as parents wouldn’t be able to read the actual content of their kids’ conversations, according to TechCrunch. (The Family Center screenshots seen by dot.LA do not detail whether parents can see those conversations).
In addition, teenage users would first have to accept an invitation from their parents to join the in-app Family Center before those parents can begin monitoring their social media activity, TechCrunch reported.