Disgraced WeWork founder Adam Neumann is back again with his real-estate project Flow (www.flow.life) and found a prestigious investor. Well-known Venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz is investing $350 million at a valuation above $1 billion, WSJ reports, making it one of the largest-ever investments for an early-stage startup. The firm, also known as a16z earlier this year, also backed Flowcarbon, another startup co-founded by Neumann. Flow is still in secretive stealth mode and is scheduled to launch in 2023.
Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Marc Andreessen said in a blog post that Flow would revolutionize residential real estate — the world’s largest asset class — is ready for exactly this change. The startup would seek to address problems in the rental-housing market, which he described as the inability of renters to own equity in their homes and a lack of social bonding between neighbors.
Adam Neumann revolutionized the second largest asset class in the world — commercial real estate — by inventing a shared office space approach with WeWork. The company soared to a $47 billion valuation before it imploded spectacularly. It had to pull its planned IPO in 2019 amid mounting concerns over its financial state and Neumann’s management style. Neumann was ousted from WeWork in 2019 but walked away with hundreds of millions of dollars. WeWork went public in October and is now trading at a market capitalization of $4 billion.
