Knotel Buys 42Floors CRE Search Engine
In New York City’s Chelsea neighborhood alone, Knotel has been responsible for nearly 30% of all deal activity since January, the company states.
NEW YORK CITY—Growing office space provider Knotel has acquired 42Floors, a commercial real estate search engine, that will give the firm access to data and technology on more than 10 billion square feet of office space in key markets across the US.
The news comes in the wake of Knotel’s acquisition in June of the German workspace operator Ahoy!Berlin in a deal to increase its presence in Europe. Since its founding in 2016, Knotel has inked more than 1 million square feet of office space serving high-growth and enterprise companies across New York, San Francisco, London and Berlin. In New York City’s Chelsea neighborhood alone, Knotel has been responsible for nearly 30% of all deal activity since January, the company states.
San Francisco-based 42Floors was founded in November 2011 and includes information on office space in all major US markets.
“42Floors built a powerful tool to organize a dark market that hasn’t changed in a hundred years,” says Amol Sarva, co-founder and CEO of Knotel. “It’s still backroom and bilateral while the rest of the world is becoming digital and standardized. This is what leads to transactions that take months to close with a dozen middlemen—no reliable information. You can buy a house faster than you can rent a floor. Partnering together will help give owners and customers what they both want: truth.”
“Working with Knotel is a natural extension of what we came to do,” says Jason Freedman, founder and CEO of 42Floors. “We started 42Floors to upgrade an industry hopelessly out of date and make it more user-friendly. Renting an office shouldn’t be an archaeological expedition. With Knotel, we have a partner to take this to the next level with a blockchain platform, where all transactions will be recorded to the ledger in daylight.”
Knotel has raised $100 million in funding since its founding. Knotel’s member network includes companies like Starbucks, Cheddar, and King.
In April, Knotel closed a $70-million Series B financing. With that latest round of funding PitchBook, a research firm owned by Morningstar, valued the firm at $500 million.
In terms of its expansion in New York City, last month Knotel signed a 10-year, 17,000 square-foot lease comprising the entire seventh floor at the 22-story, 400,000 square-foot property at the Rudin Family’s 560 Lexington Ave.
In April, Knotel inked a 45,000-square-foot lease at for the entire 19th and 20th floors at 360 Park Avenue South.