Adam Neumann, the disgraced founder of WeWork, revealed details about his newest venture Flow, a real estate company expected to launch this year.
In August, Flow received a $350 million investment from venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, which hosted Neumann at a November event.
“We want to create an elevated experience for the resident and we want to find a way to share with the resident a portion of the value they create,” said Neumann of Flow in a newly-released video from the conference.
Flow will operate residential apartment buildings across Atlanta, Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Nashville, as reported by Bloomberg. The company will be made up of four sections which include management property, a real estate fund, a financial services company and a fourth pillar that will “take some of the value and share it with the value creators,” according to Neumann, who said details about the company are still under wraps.
But the Israeli-American businessman revealed he aims to create a sense of community within apartment buildings in order to make renters feel like owners, which he said will subsequently add value to the buildings. “If you’re in your apartment building and you’re a renter and your toilet gets clogged, you call the super,” he said. “If you’re in your own apartment and you own it, you take the plunger.”
Neumann’s new business comes four years after he resigned as CEO of WeWork in August 2019. The company, which leased office space for coworking, was valued at $47 billion at the time.
Shortly afterwards, WeWork’s planned IPO in 2019 was cancelled amid reports that Neumann had privately purchased property to lease to his own company, borrowed money from WeWork and planned to charge it nearly $6 million to use his trademark of the “We” family of brands, which included companies like “WeGrow” and “Power by We.”
The company’s value fell to $8 billion in November 2019, when SoftBank Group took a majority stake in the company and gave Neumann $1.7 billion in return for most of his stocks. Neumann currently has an estimated net worth of $1.1 billion.
Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly said Neumann trademarked the word “We,” instead of the “We” family trademarks.
